Class 




B»nk ^ \U 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



KENTUCKY 



IN 



THE NATION'S HISTORY 



BY 



ROBERT McNUTT McELROY, Ph.D. 

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF AMERICAN HISTORY 
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 



ILLUSTRATED, WITH MAP AND HISTORICAL PORTRAITS 




NEW YORK 
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 

1909 



Y\\^- 



Copyright, 1909, by 
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 



All rights reserved 
Published, November, 1909 



©CLA251S9S 



CONTENTS 



Author's Preface 
I. The Vanguard of the Westward Movement . 
II. Transylvania, the Last Experiment in Proprietary 
Government ..... 

III. Kentucky's Part in the American Revolution 

IV. Kentucky Enters the Union . 
V. Harmar, Wilkinson and St. Clair , 

VI. One Phase of the Genet Mission . 
VII. Conflicts over the Commercial Highway of the West 
VIII. The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 and 1799 
IX. Kentucky and the Purchase of Louisiana 
X. The Burr Conspiracy ..... 
XI. Kentucky in the War of 18 12 
XII. A Chapter in Financial History 

XIII. Kentucky in the War with Aiexico 

XIV. Last Days of the " Great Commoner." . 

XV. Atchison, Dixon and the Repeal of the Missouri Com 
promise ....... 

XVI. Loyal to the Union ..... 

A Critical Bibliography of Kentucky History 
Index ..... 



33 
62 

114 

147 
163 

185 
21 1 
265 

277 

315 
111 
408 

455 

483 

500 

547 
579 



PREFACE 

As this volume represents a conscious departure from 
the customary method of deahng with State history, a 
word of explanation, as to my object, is necessary. The 
real aim of the study of State history, as I conceive it, 
should be to add to our knowledge of the nation, as the 
day for the cultivation of a purely local patriotism — if, in- 
deed, that day ever existed — has passed forever. To write 
of the history of a State as though it were something apart 
from the nation is not only to violate the "unity of his- 
tory," but also to deprive the nation of a valuable source 
of information concerning national events. In making 
historical investigations, from time to time, I have been 
impressed by the fact that much material, bearing upon 
the nation's history, lies buried in local archives and pri- 
vate collections. For the student of purely local history, 
most of this material is of little value, relating, as it does, 
to distinctly national questions, vv^hile, to the national 
historian, it is inaccessible, it being obviously impossible 
for the investigator, in such broad fields, to delve very 
deeply into local treasuries. 

In the preparation of the present volume, I have studied 
the local collections from the point of view of one primarily 
interested in the nation. Such local events as have had a 
distinctly national influence, as well as such national events 
as have particularly affected local conditions, have been 
my concern. A typical example of the first is presented in 



PREFACE 

the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, and, of the second, in 
the purchase of Louisiana. 

I have been primarily aided, in my work, by the fact 
that, for over half a century. Colonel Reuben T. Durrett, 
the father and president of the Filson Club, has devoted 
himself to the task of collecting and preserving all avail- 
able material, bearing upon Kentucky. His priceless col- 
lection has been placed at my disposal, and I have, also, 
freely drawn upon his unexcelled knowledge of Kentucky 
history, in all of its phases; while a large portion of my 
manuscript, when completed, was carefully examined and 
criticised by him. 

For information, given in personal interviews, I am 
particularly indebted to General Simon Bolivar Buckner, 
Colonel J. Stoddard Johnston, and Mr. Justice Harlan of 
the United States Supreme Court, of whom the latter 
rendered me the great service of reading the major part of 
the proof sheets of the book. 

" wodoneyo," 
North New Castle, Maine, 
September 23, 1909. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE , 

Henry Clay as a young man .... Frontispiece 

From a miniature now in possession of Mrs. John Clay, of Lexington^ 
Kentucky. 

Daniel Boone 26^' 

From a sketch by John Trumbull, now in the possession of Colonel 
Reuben T. Durrett, of Louisville, Kentucky. 

General James Wilkinson 142 / 

From a life-size portrait by Jarvis, now in the possession of Colonel 
Reuben T. Durrett, of Louisville, Kentucky. 



/ 



George Rogers Clark 17° 

From a life-size portrait by Matthew Harris Jouett, now in the posses- 
sion of Colonel Reuben T. Durrett, of Louisville, Kentucky. 

Fac-simile of letter from Thomas Jefferson to J. Cabell 

Breckinridge regarding the Kentucky Resolutions . 230 

Reproduced by the courtesy of Mr. Desha Breckenridge and his sister. 
Dean Breckenridge, of the University of Chicago. 

Reduced fac-simile of the original text of the Kentucky 
Resolutions of 1798, as printed and distributed by 
order of the Legislature 258 

Map of Battle of the Thames 352 - 

Henry Clay as an old man 480 

From a daguerreotype now in the possession of Mrs. Robert Dick Wilson, 
of Princeton, N. J. 

The Document given to General Simon Bolivar Buckner 
by President Lincoln, stating his attitude toward 
Kentucky neutrality 536 



KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S 
HISTORY 

CHAPTER I 

THE VANGUARD OF THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 

For almost two hundred years after the first voyage 
of Columbus the interior of the North American conti- 
nent remained a trackless wilderness. The adventurous 
Spaniards in the South, in their mad search for gold, 
had indeed discovered the Mississippi River, and had 
buried within its mysterious waters the body of their 
heroic leader, De Soto, but of the sources of that river, 
and of the great valley drained by it, the world was al- 
most as ignorant in 1692 as it had been two hundred years 
earlier. Those two centuries had been centuries of such 
rapid progress in geographical discovery that it had been 
quite impossible for even the educated classes to assimi- 
late the geographical knowledge laid before them, and it 
is in no wise remarkable that, even after the permanent 
colonization of the Atlantic seaboard was well under way, 
men should have followed with eagerness every strip of 
water extending westward, in the hope that it would lead 
them into the great South Sea which Balboa had discov- 
ered and Magellan had been the first to cross. It is quite 
natural also that among the instructions sent by the Vir- 
ginia Company (1608) to Captain John Smith and his 
fellow colonists at Jamestown, was the command to dis- 

Kentucky — i i 



2 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

cover a passage to the South Sea,^ and that Henry Hudson 
should have followed, with the same hope, the course of 
the mighty river which bears his name.^ 

What was true of these men was true of many who 
followed them. It took an enormous amount of investi- 
gation to convince the world that the continent of North 
America was a vast mainland, through which it was vain 
to seek a passage by water to the Pacific, and it should 
not astonish us, therefore, to find that the two men who, 
at almost the same time, discovered the Kentucky region 
were engaged in this search. 

Of these the first was no less a personage than the 
famous explorer, Robert Cavelier de La Salle, a na- 
tive of Rouen in France, who at the age of twenty-three 
had migrated to Canada and was soon deeply involved 
in studying this problem. His faith in the existence of 
such a stream was strengthened from time to time by 
Indian tales, those uncertain guides which had led many 
a gallant explorer to his death. Entering the Alle- 
gheny near its source, he passed down the Ohio, until 
he came to the Falls where the city of Louisville now 
stands.^ 

"In making this long journey," says Colonel Durrett,^ 
"he was the discoverer of Kentucky from the Big Sandy 
to the Rapids of the Ohio, and was the first white man 
whose eyes looked Eastward from the beautiful river to 

1 J. A. Doyle, "The English in America," p. 165; J. E. Cooke, "Virginia," 

P- 45- 

' Fiske, "Discovery of America," II, p. 546. 

3 I purposely omit the somewhat doubtful claim that Louis de Moscoso in 
1543 passed along the southern boundary line of Kentucky with his forlorn 
band of Spanish adventurers. Collins, I, 14 and 509. Durrett'a "Filson," 
p. 32, accepts the story. "Encyclopaedia Britannica," La Salle. 

4 Durrett'a "Centenary of Kentucky," p. 15. 



VANGUARD OF THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 3 

the Bluegrass Land which forms the Garden Spot of the 

State." 

Only two years after La Salle's visit, there came into 
the Kentucky region the representative of the race which 
was soon to dispute with France the possession of the 
district. In 167 1, General Abraham Wood, by the au- 
thority of the testy old Tory Governor of Virginia, Sir Wil- 
liam Berkeley, sent out Captain Thomas Batts with a 
party in search of the river which would lead to the Pa- 
cific Ocean. ^ Whether or not Batts actually crossed the 
Big Sandy and entered the territory now comprised in 
the State of Kentucky, it is quite impossible to determine 
from his journal, but he at least traced the pathway from 
the old settlements of Virginia to the trackless wilderness 
beyond the mountains.^ 

For almost half a century after the Batts expedition, we 
have no record or tradition of visits of white men to the 
wilderness of Kentucky. And when we again come, with 
the year 1730,^ to brief records of such visits they tell us 

1 Cf . Durrett's "Centenary of Kentucky," p. 13. Colonel Durrett has in 
his collection a MS. copy of Captain Batts' " Journal." It is published in 
Vol. Ill of the "Documents Relative to the Colonial History of New York," 
pp. 193-197- 

2 This is probably the journey which Daniel Coxe had in mind when, in his 
" Description of the English Province of Carolana," he tells of a certain Col- 
onel Wood of Virginia, who had discovered various branches of the Ohio and 
Mississippi Rivers. Durrett's "Centenary of Kentucky," p. 12; Butler's Ken- 
tucky, 2d Ed., p. 499; Collins, I, p. 14; Long's "Expedition," I, p. 236; 
Albach's "Western Annals," p. 94, repeat the story. 

3 In 1730, however, a certain John Sailing of Williamsburg, Va., was cap- 
tured near the James River by a band of Cherokee Indians and carried as far as 
the Salt Licks of Kentucky. Here he made his escape, but was again captured 
by a band of Illinois Indians and taken on to Kaskaskia, whence, having es- 
caped a second time, he returned to Virginia, probably by way of the Cumber- 
land Gap. "The Annals of Kentucky" (Collins, I, p. 15) state that Sailing 
was ransomed at Kaskaskia and returned to Virginia by way of Canada. Cf. 
also Wither's "Border Warfare," p. 43; Butler's "Kentucky," 2d Ed., p. 21. 



4 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

still only of chance wanderings in the region, and give very 
little beyond the bare statement of personal hardships and 
dangers.* 

The knowledge of the western wilderness which the 
reports of such casual visitors gave to the people of Vir- 
ginia, and of the other settlements east of the mountains, 
must have been extremely vague, but in spite of their 
ignorance concerning the district lying beyond the west- 
ern mountains the people of Virginia, as early as 1749, had 
begun to cast wistful glances in that direction, suspecting 
that the day was soon to come when this country would 
be of value, and questioning how they could best secure 
those lands, whose ownership the French were already 
preparing to dispute with them. Following the precedent 
set by England in her efforts to colonize the Atlantic 
seaboard, some of her leading citizens organized land 
companies with a view to buying up vast tracts of this 
western wilderness, inducing settlers to migrate thither 
by giving them grants of land, and thus causing the rest 
to rise in value so as to repay the expenses of the venture. 

The most important of these companies, from the stand- 
point of Kentucky history, were the so-called "Loyal 
Company" and the "Ohio Company." Of these the 
former was the first to act, and Dr. Thomas Walker of 
Albemarle County, Virginia, was selected to take charge 
of the task of locating lands granted it by Virginia. Late 

1 In 1739 Longueil descended the Ohio fronn Canada and discovered the 
famous Big Bone Lick in Kentucky, and the same year the hostile attitude of 
the Chickasaw Indians caused the French authorities in Canada to send troops 
down the Ohio to punish them. "Annals," Collins, I, p. 15. 

Durrett's "Filson," pp. 31-32; De Hass, "Western Virginia," p. 48, note; 
for description of visit of John Howard, in 1742, which served as one of the 
grounds for the English claim to the Ohio Valley. Collins, I, p. 15, note. 



VANGUARD OF THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 5 

in the summer of 1749 he prepared his expedition, con- 
sisting of himself and five companions.^ 

On March 6, 1750, they began their journey toward 
the west and shortly reached the pass in the mountains 
named by them Cumberland Gap.^ Crossing through 
this they came into southeastern Kentucky, which had 
never before been visited by white men, and proceeding 
to the Cumberland River, ascended it to a point near the 
present town of Barboursville.^ On the northwest side of 

1 Colonel Durrett, in his "Centenary of Kentucky," which I follow largely 
in discussing this topic, says that of these five men the names of only three, 
Ambrose Powell, Colby Chew and Tomlinson are preserved. P. 21. 

Collins, however, gives two lists, one mentioning only Walker, Powell and 
Chew (Vol. II, p. 415), while in the other he mentions Walker, Wood, Paton, 
Buchanan and Captain Charles Campbell by name and adds that others also 
were with him. Vol. I, p. 510. Walker's own journal, however, settles the 
matter at the very beginning thus: "Having, on the 12th of December last, 
been employed for a certain consideration to go Westward in order to discover 
a proper place for settlement, I left my house on the sixth day of March, at 
ten o'clock, 1749-50, in company with Ambrose Powell, William Tomlinson, 
Colby Chew, Henry Lawless and John Hughes. ..." Journal reproduced 
in Johnson's "First Explorations of Kentucky" (Filson Club Publications, 
No. 13). This opening sentence is quoted by Hulbert — "Boone's Wilder- 
ness Road," p. 50. 

2 The year of the discoveiy, says Collins, was preserved by the distinct recol- 
lection of Dr. Walker himself and by the fact that Powell carved his name and 
the date 1750 upon a tree near the gap. This inscription was pointed out to 
Isaac Shelby by Dr. Walker in 1770. Collins, II, p. 416. 

Marshall, 1824 Ed., I, p. 6, is evidently at error when he assigns the dis- 
covery of Cumberland Gap to an expedition made by Walker in 1758. The 
"Journal" of this expedition, a copy of which is among the Durrett MSS., 
omits ten days, and they happen to be the ten days which should contain an 
account of the passage through the "Gap." This probably accounts for the 
confusion which has arisen concerning the discovery of the "Gap." Walker's 
"Journal" was published in 1888 by Little, Brown & Co. 

3 The Barboursville in what is now Knox County, Kentucky, must not be 
confused with the Barboursville just east of Huntington in West Virginia. 
Pownall, in his "North America," p. 34, says, "As for the branches of the 
Ohio which head in the New Virginia, I am particularly obliged to Dr. Thomas 
Walker, for the intelligence of what names they bear, and what Rivers they 
fall into. ..." 



6 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

the river they selected the site for the erection of the head- 
quarters of the proposed settlements. Land was cleared 
and a log house constructed. It was completed on April 25, 
1750, and was the first house erected by white men within 
the State. ^ But the builders, terrified by wandering 
bands of savages, deserted their "settlement" only a few 
days after its completion, and twenty years passed before 
this or any other site within the Kentucky wilderness served 
as a permanent abode for the hardy adventurers from be- 
yond the mountains. 

Meanwhile the Ohio Company^ had been organized 
with the same purpose,^ and on October 31, 1750, its 
agent, Christopher Gist, had set out from the banks of 
the Potomac, following an Indian trail which led from 
Wills' Creek to the Ohio.^ After an extended tour through 
the country north of the Ohio, Gist returned to the mouth 
of the Scioto, and prepared to descend to the Great Falls. 

This he was cautioned by his Indian friends not to do, 
as a large party of Indians, allies of the French, they told 

1 Durrett's " Centenary of Kentucky," p. 22; Hulbert's " Boone's Wilder- 
ness Road," p. 64, give one possible exception, 12 cabins by French at mouth 
of Scioto. Durrett's "Filson," p. 32, says, "A French Map, published by 
Robert de Vaugondy in 1755, shows 'Walker's Etabliss Anglois,' on a 
branch of the Cumberland River, in 1750." It, however, does not appear on 
Filson's Map. 

2 This should not be confused with the Great Ohio Company formed in 
1787, to plant colonies in the Northwest Territory, whose influence caused the 
old Congress of the Confederation to pass the famous Ordinance of 1787, 
which was confirmed by Congress under the Constitution and which laid the 
foundations of our territorial system. Fiske's "Critical Period," p. 203. 

3 It had received royal permission to select and settle 500,000 acres in the 
western country. For stockholders, regulations, etc., see Bancroft, 1890 Ed., 
II, p. 343; Wilson's "History of the American People," II, p. 77. 

* Gist's " Journal" contains text of his instructions, "to search out . . . 
lands upon the river Ohio . . . down as low as the great falls thereof." . . . 
Durrett MSS. 



VANGUARD OF THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 7 

him, were hunting in that neighborhood. Gist, however, 
was not to be easily deterred, and, attended only by a boy, 
he proceeded cautiously down the Kentucky side of the 
Ohio until within fifteen miles of the Falls. Here he 
came upon unmistakable signs that he was indeed in the 
midst of considerable bands of hostile savages. Wisely 
abandoning his plan of visiting the Falls he turned back 
to the Kentucky River. From the top of a mountain 
in this region, says Irving,^ "he had a view to the south- 
west as far as the eye could reach, over a vast wooded 
country in the fresh garniture of Spring, and watered by 
abundant streams; but as yet only the hunting ground of 
savage tribes, and the scene of their sanguinary combats. 
In a word, Kentucky lay spread out before him in all 
its wild magnificence. . . . For six weeks was this hardy 
pioneer making his toilsome way up the valley of the 
Cuttawa, or Kentucky River, to the Banks of the Blue 
Stone; often checked by precipices, and obliged to seek 
fords at the heads of tributary streams; and happy when 
he could find a buffalo path broken through the tangled 
forests, or worn into the everlasting rocks." 

On the first of May, 1 75 1 , from a tall rock on the top of a 
mountain, he saw the great Kanawha forcing its passage 
through the enclosing cliffs. After crossing this river and 
traveling many weary days, he reached his own frontier 
abode on the banks of the Yadkin. Upon this long 
journey Gist had seen some of the best parts of Kentucky, 
as well as of the country north of the Ohio,^ and his re- 

1 Irving's "Washington," 1875 Ed., I, p. 23. 

2 Copy of Gist's "Journal," Durrett MSS., in Pownall's "North America," 
Appendix VI. It indicates that Gist traveled by the aid of a compass, while 
Walker's "Journal" gives nothing to indicate that he had a compass with him. 
Durrett's "Centenary of Kentucky," p. 34. 



8 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

port must have impressed the stockholders of the Ohio 
Company with the value of their grant. He also doubt- 
less impressed upon their minds the fact that the French 
were encroaching upon that grant with all the energy 
which they could command. It is quite easy to see, there- 
fore, why Robert Dinwiddie, one of the twenty stock- 
holders of the Ohio Company, when made Lieutenant 
Governor of Virginia in 1752,^ should have displayed so 
keen an interest in what the French were doing in the Ohio 
Valley.^ It is also easy to see why, when he thought 
the time for protest had arrived, he should have chosen 
as his official herald, George Washington, half-brother to 
Augustine Washington, the President of the Ohio Com- 
pany,^ and to Lawrence Washington, one of the leading 
stockholders. The story of how that young Virginian, 
piloted by Gist, conveyed the message of Governor 
Dinwiddie to the French Commander in the Ohio Val- 
ley and returned with what was really a declaration of 
war, belongs to the history of the world, marking as it 
does the opening of one of the greatest wars in all history.^ 
" The Journals " of Walker and Gist ^ give us the first de- 
scriptions of the wilderness of Kentucky "as it came from 
the hands of the Creator." They tell of a country as rich 
and as beautiful as any on earth, yet utterly devoid of in- 
habitants, with the exception of a few Indians gathered 
in towns along the northern boundary line ^ and a few 

1 Wilson's "History of the American People," II, pp. 76 and 77. 

2 living's "Washington," 1875 Ed., I, p. 27. 

3 Wilson's "History of the American People," II, p. 79. 

* The war known in European History as The Seven Years' War. 

5 Pownall's "North America," Appendix VI, for Gist's " Journal." Durrett 
MSS. contain copies of both " Journals." 

8 Gist's "Journal" describes a Shawnee town located near the site of the 
present city of Portsmouth, Ohio, containing about three hundred Indians and 



VANGUARD OF THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 9 

along the Mississippi River. This was due to the fact 
that Kentucky — "the Dark and Bloody Ground," or "The 
Middle Ground," as John Filson, following the practice 
of the Indians themselves, names it ^ — lay just between 
the territory north of the Ohio, occupied by the Iroquois, 
and the home of the less powerful Cherokees who dwelt 
to the south. Each of these savage nations laid claim 
to Kentucky, and each used every art known to savage 
warfare to make good its claim. Their war parties often 
met within the disputed territory, and so constant was the 
conflict that no permanent Indian villages could be estab- 
lished in the district. Thus it happened that Gist and 
Walker found it a solitary wilderness, containing few signs 
even of former habitation, with the exception of very 
ancient mounds and fortifications thickly scattered along 
the eastern borders and becoming less frequent as they 

having "about forty houses on the South side of the river and about one hundred 
on the North side." Under date of Tuesday, the 29th of January, 1751, 
George Croghan, in his "Journal of 1765" (reprint Butler Appendix), ex- 
plains that the houses on the south side had been built after a great flood, 
which had rendered the lower banks of the northern side uninhabitable. 

1 "The Discovery, Settlement, and Present State of Kentucke," by John 
Filson, p. 7. The Delawares and Shawnees called the vast undefined tract 
of land south of the Ohio by the name " Kuttaawa," meaning "The Great 
Wilderness." This name was long used interchangeably with the Iroquois 
word "Kentake," meaning "The Place of Meadows" or "The Hunting 
Grounds." 

Another origin of the name is given by John Johnson, who for years resided 
among the Shawnees. He declared that Kentucky is a Shawnee word meaning 
"At the head of the River" ("Archaeologia Americana," I, p. 299). Marshall, 
however, declares that the name was derived from that of a "deep channeled 
and clifty river, called by the Indians, Kan-tuck-kee, which they pronounced 
with a strong emphasis." Marshall's "History of Kentucky," 1824 Ed., I, p. i. 
On pages 8 and 9 of the same volume, however, Marshall adds that in con- 
sequence of frequent combats between the savages upon the Kentucky soil — 
"the country being thickly wooded, and deeply shaded — was called in their 
expressive language, The Dark and Bloody Ground." 



lo KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

approached the west.^ There were, it is true, a few 
Shawnee villages to the north, but they were merely the 

1 These mounds, formerly believed to have been built by a prehistoric peo- 
ple called by the non-committal name of "Mound Builders," have been for 
years the puzzle of archaeologists. They are often of solid masonry and indi- 
cate a degree of building skill far beyond that of the historic savages of the 
regions near the Ohio River. There are indications also that the use of metal 
as well as stone was well understood in Kentucky before the historic period 
begins. In the "Kentucky Gazette" of June 7, 1790, appears an account of 
the discovery of an old lead mine near Lexington which had been worked 
apparently years before the appearance of the earliest explorers. 

In a manuscript, dated Philadelphia, March 17, 1792, an unnamed trav- 
eler has left this record of his visit to some of the mounds of this western 
region, "Many tokens remain," he says, "of that country being in ancient 
ages as well cultivated and as thickly inhabited as the country on the Danube 
or the Rhine." "A copper mine," he continues, "was opened some years 
since, farther down the Mississippi, and, to the great surprise of the labourers, 
a large collection of mining tools were found several fathoms below the super- 
ficies of the earth." Durrett MSS. 

Mr. Thomas Bodley was informed by Indians of various tribes northwest 
of the Ohio, that they had a tradition, common among many tribes, "that 
Kentucky had been settled by whites, and they had been exterminated by war. 
They were of the opinion that the old fortifications, now to be seen in Ken- 
tucky and Ohio, were the productions of those white inhabitants." Dur- 
rett MSS. 

Another tradition asserts that the last battle for the extermination of these 
original white inhabitants was fought at the Falls of the Ohio — "that the In- 
dians succeeded in driving the Aborigines into a small island below the rapids, 
where the whole of them were cut to pieces." Durrett MSS. 

An examination at low water of this island, so runs another of these inter- 
esting old documents, revealed a multitude of human bones, and an "Indian 
Chief . . . told General Clark . . . that the battle of Sandy Island decided 
finally the fall of Kentucky, with its ancient inhabitants." Durrett MSS. 

Colonel Joseph Davies reports that a few remaining members of an almost 
extinct tribe of Sacks whom he interviewed at St. Louis in 1800 expressed 
astonishment that anyone should live in Kentucky, "filled," as they said, 
"with the manes of its butchered inhabitants." The statement was also re- 
peated by them that the aborigines of this country were white and possessed 
such arts as were unknown by the Indians. Durrett MSS. 

Another of these accounts reports the discovery of "a furnace of brick work 
five fathoms below the present surface; and in this furnace were found a quantity 
of coals and firebrands which, for aught we know, might have been kindled 
in the days of Moses or Lycurgus." Durrett MSS. 



VANGUARD OF THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 1 1 

advance guard of their allies, "the Iroquois," and their 
presence was not noticed by the first explorers.^ 

These expeditions of Walker and Gist, however, at- 
tracted so little attention that when the first Kentucky his- 
torian, John Filson, set about gathering data for his book, 
he seems to have heard no hint of them, but settled upon 
James McBride as the discoverer of the region, upon the 
very insufficient evidence that his initials and the year 
had been carved upon a tree at the mouth of the Ken- 
tucky River in 1754.^ From this visit of McBride, if such 
a visit ever occurred, and the evidence for it is indeed 
slight, until the Peace of Paris (1763), which closed the 
long wars between France and England for the possession 
of Canada and the Ohio Valley, we have no clear record of 
any voluntary visit of white men to Kentucky.^ Corporate 

For brief description of mounds on the site of Louisville, see Durrett's 
"Centenary of Louisville," pp. 9-11. 

The great Shawnee Chief Cornstalk, repeating a tradition very common 
among the Indians along the Ohio, told Colonel M'Kee that Ohio and Ken- 
tucky had once been inhabited by white men who possessed arts vastly supe- 
rior to those of the Indian tribes. These inhabitants, he said, after many 
bloody contests, had been exterminated. 

Among the Durrett MSS. are a number of ancient depositions preserving 
tales of this character which have been, from time to time, collected by the 
owner. 

1 The position of their villages is marked on Filson's Map, 1784; cf. Gist's 
"Journal," March 13. 

2 The pioneers declared that Filson "could ask more questions than every- 
body and answer fewer than anybody." Durrett's "Life and Writings of 
John Filson," p. 16; Collins, I, pp. 16 and 519. 

"On croit que M. James Bride est le premier homme blanc qui ait eu con- 
naissance de Kentucke. En 1754, acompagne de quelques amis il descendit 
I'Ohio dans des canots, aborda I'embouchure de la riviere Kentucke, et y 
marqua trois arbres, avec les premieres lettres de son nom, et la date du jour 
et de I'annee." "Histoire de Kentucke," par M. Parrand. This is a transla- 
tion of Filson's " Kentucke." 

3 A number of expeditions to Kentucky and the neighboring regions along 
the Ohio took place soon after the Peace of Paris, 1763, e. g.: 



12 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

enterprise, such as that contemplated by the " Loyal Com- 
pany" and the "Ohio Company," had ceased as soon as 
the war began, and, at its close. King George the Third is- 
sued his famous Proclamation of 1763, which seemed a 
deathblow to all projects for the settlement of the vast 
wilderness beyond the mountains, as it provided that the 
British possessions south of Canada and west of the Al- 
leghany Mountains should be marked off and kept as an 
Indian reservation ^ into which no white settlers might 
enter. 

Arrangements were promptly made for the survey of 



(a) Col. George Croghan's tour down the Ohio in 1765 is of considerable 
interest on account of the elaborate " Journal" which he kept. This " Journal," 
with an account of the various forms in which it has been published, is given 
in Vol. I of Thwaite's "Early Western Travels," pp. 127-173, and contains, 
under the dates of May 30 and 31, an interesting account of the Great Bone 
Licks of Kentucky. 

(b) In 1766 occurred the trip of Captain Harry Gordon, Chief Engineer in 
the Western Department in North America, from Fort Pitt down the Ohio 
River. In speaking of the Falls opposite the present site of Louisville, Gordon 
says (July 16), "The waters at the Falls were low; it being the Summer. . . . 
Several boats passed it at the very dryest season of the year, when the waters 
are at the lowest, by unloading one-third their freight. . . . They passed on 
the North side, where the carrying place is three-fourths of a mile long; and 
on the Southeast side it is about half that distance, and is reckoned the safest 
passage for those who are unacquainted. ..." showing that the Ohio was 
even at this early period considerably used as a highway. 

1 A Map on p. 137 of Channing's "Student's History of the United States" 
shows the limits of this reserved strip. The Proclamation says: "... And 
we do further declare it to be our royal will and pleasure, for the present, . . . 
to reserve under our sovereignty, protection, and dominion, for the use of 
the said Indians, all the land and territories not included within the limits 
of our said three new governments, or within the limits of the territory granted 
to the Hudson's Bay Company; as also the westward of the sources of the 
rivers which fall into the sea from the west and north-west; . . . and we do 
hereby strictly forbid ... all our loving subjects from making any purchases 
or settlements whatever, or taking possession of any of the lands above reserved, 
without our special leave and license for that purpose first obtained." Text of 
Proclamation of 1763, Macdonalds "Select Charters," p. 271. 



VANGUARD OF THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 13 

the line.^ John Stuart,^ Indian agent for the southern 
colonies, and Sir WiUiam Johnson, agent for the north- 
ern district, were appointed for the important work. 
The latter appointment was particularly fortunate for 
the history of Kentucky, for Johnson, deliberately neg- 
lecting his instructions,^ ran his part of the line down the 
Ohio River to the mouth of the Tennessee, thus leaving 
east of the line of demarcation, almost the whole of what 
is now Kentucky, and exempting it from the restrictions 
which the Proclamation imposed upon the reserved dis- 
trict.^ Thus Kentucky was thrown open to white ex- 
plorers and settlers, while the other regions west of the 
Alleghanies were closed by royal decree, and to this 
fact it is due, in no small degree, that she became the 
pioneer commonwealth of the West; for, in the valley of 
the Yadkin, the prince of pioneers was waiting to head 
the hosts who were to invade the "Dark and Bloody 
Ground," and to make of it an inhabited land. 

There were, as we have seen, other adventurers who, be- 
fore Boone's day, had traveled the unbroken wilderness of 
Kentucky. There were many, equally gallant, who fought 
by his side during the early days of the westward move- 

1 Bancroft, 1859 Ed., VI, pp. 225, 226. 

2 This Stuart should not be confounded with John Stewart, Boone's com- 
panion in the wilderness of Kentucky. 

3 Johnson's instructions were to acknowledge the Cherokee claim to the re- 
gion west of the Kanawha. He, however, decided to reject the Cherokee claim 
and admit that of the Iroquois, as the Cherokees themselves had done some 
years before. At the Great Council of Fort Stanwix (Sept. -Oct., 1768), he in- 
duced the Iroquois to surrender their claim, and allow the western boundary of 
Virginia to be the Ohio River instead of the Kanawha. Winsor's "Westward 
Movement," pp. 16-17; Bancroft, 1859 Ed., VI, pp. 227-228. 

* Treaty of Fort Stanwix, 5 Nov., 1768; in appendix to Butler's "History 
of Kentucky," 1834 Ed.; also in the "Documentary History of New York," 
I, P- 587; Winsor's "Westward Movement," p. 17. 



/ 



14 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

ment, but it has always been the practice of historians to 
represent the events of epochs by singling out the leaders, 
and there can be no doubt that Boone was the leader 
among the simple backwoodsmen who opened up the 
Kentucky district for settlement. 

From the standpoint of civilized society Boone did not 
represent a high type, either of mind or of character. If 
Major Andre, when arrested near West Point, after his ne- 
gotiations with the traitor, Arnold, had attempted to pur- 
chase his release by displaying a bogus American commis- 
sion, no American tears would have been shed over his 
execution — ^yet Daniel Boone is reported ^ to have carried 
an old British commission which Lord Dunmore had given 
him, slung round his neck in a leather bag, and whenever 
he got into close quarters during the Revolution, to have 
displayed it as evidence that he was a loyal son of his 
Britannic majesty, George III, and an enemy to his re- 
bellious subjects, the colonists. 

Courage ^ was his in abundance, but courage was no 
unique quality in a country which had no attraction for a 
coward. Skill in woodcraft, resourcefulness in times of 
sudden and unexpected danger, untiring energy and stead- 
fastness of purpose, all these he possessed in a marked 
degree, as which of his fellow pioneers did not .? What 
made Daniel Boone the grandest specimen of a pioneer 
that our western annals recall, was the fact that, added 
to these qualities, he possessed that divinely given com- 

1 Robert B. McAfee's "Journal," Durrett MSS.; Durrett's "Centenary of 
Kentucky," p. 29. 

2 Filson makes Boone utter these words concerning fear: It is "vain if no 
danger comes, and if it does, only augments the pain. It was my happiness to 
be destitute of this affecting passion, with which I had the greatest reason to 
be affected," 



I 



VANGUARD OF THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 15 

mission of leadership, a most magnetic personality. Al- 
though totally unfit for the position of military command- 
ant of any considerable detachment of soldiers, Boone 
was a born general of pioneers, and so long as that peculiar 
type of leader was needed he was the first Kentuckian, 
though as soon as military leadership was required in the 
district, he stepped aside into the ranks, leaving the di- 
rection of affairs to that truly epic figure, George Rogers 
Clark. And when, a little later, Kentucky needed a politi- 
cal head, Clark, in his turn, gave place to the unworthy, 
though able commander, James Wilkinson. 

Of the early life of Daniel Boone practically nothing is 
known, although many biographies have been written of 
him, with some of which he would perhaps have been 
more than satisfied, and with all of which he would cer- 
tainly have been greatly amused.^ Among them there is 
no general agreement with reference to either the date or 
the place of his birth. ^ Until about his fortieth year 
Boone was so inconspicuous a member of society that 
little authentic data with reference to him was preserved; 
but we know that at some period of Daniel's youth his 
father moved to one of the valleys south of the Yadkin, in 
North Carolina,^ where Daniel was living his simple, and, 



1 For list of Biographies, see bibliography in Appendix. 

2 E. g., Bogart, p. 16, gives Feb. 11, 1735; Collins, II, p. 56, gives Feb. 11, 
1731; Marshall, I, p. 17, gives it as "about 1746," etc. McClung, p. 46, says 
that Boone was born in Virginia; Marshall, I, p. 17, gives Maryland as his 
birthplace, while Nile, IV, p. 33, assures us that he was born in "Bridgeworth, 
Somersetshire, England." Peck says Boone was born in Bucks Co., Pa. Bogart 
says "near Bristol, on the right bank of the Delaware, about twenty miles from 
Philadelphia." Collins, ibid. 

3 Collins, II, p. 56; John H. Wheeler in his "Historical Sketches of North 
Carolina" naturally claims him as a North Carolinian. "In North Carolina," he 
says, "Daniel Boone was reared. Here his youthful days were spent; and here 



1 6 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

we might venture to say, idle life/ when the moment 
arrived for him to make his first dramatic entrance upon 
the stage of history. A party of hunters had recently made 
a long expedition into the wilderness of Kentucky ^ and 
had brought back stories so wonderful as to be scarcely 
credible. Boone, however, with no relish for the mo- 
notonous labor of caring for the growing crops, and 
filled with a passion for the virgin wilderness, was 
easily persuaded of their truth. He formed an intimacy 
with John Findlay,^ a member of the original hunt- 
ing party, and with him prepared the expedition which 
marks the beginning of his career as a really historic 
figure. 

"It was the first of May, in the year 1769," says Boone 
in the narrative dictated during his old age to the historian, 
John Filson, "that I resigned my domestic happiness for 
a time, and left my family and peaceable habitation on 
the Yadkin River, in North Carolina, to wander through 
the wilderness of America, in quest of the country of 
Kentucky." ^ His companions were John Findlay, John 
Stewart, Joseph Holden, James Mooney and William 

that bold spirit was trained, which so fearlessly encountered the perils through 
which he passed in after life. His fame is part of her property, and she has 
inscribed his name on a town in the region where his youth was spent." 

1 Colonel Durrett remarks that for a pretended farmer to start to the wilder- 
ness on a hunting expedition, just at corn-planting season is a suspicious cir- 
cumstance, and leads one to suppose that Daniel was not overfond of the hoe. 

2 John Filson's " Kentucke," pp. 7 and 8. This was the expedition of John 
Findlay which took place in 1767. Collins, I, p. 16, and II, p. 417, etc.; Mar- 
shall, I, pp. 2 and 5; Butler, 1834 Ed., p. 18. 

3 Marshall, I, p. 2, spells the name Finlay and also calls him "the first to 
penetrate and explore" Kentucky. Collins, II, p. 177, uses both spellings, and 
speaks of another John Finley who came from Pennsylvania with a party 
in July, 1773, and passed down the Ohio and thence went into Fleming and 
Nicholas Counties. 

4 John Filson's "Kentucke." 



VANGUARD OF THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 17 

Cool, and their object was not only to enjoy the excellent 
hunting which Findlay had so enthusiastically described, 
but at the same time to make a thorough examination of 
the region with a view to its permanent occupation. A 
vivid picture of this party as they took their first view of 
that promised land, after more than a month of travel, 
is drawn by John M. Peck.^ "Their dress was of the 
description usually worn at that period by all forest 
rangers. The outside garment was a hunting shirt, or 
loose open frock, made of dressed deerskins. Leggings or 
drawers, of the same material, covered the lower ex- 
tremities, to which was appended a pair of moccasins for 
the feet. The cape or collar of the hunting shirt and the 
seams of the leggings, were adorned with fringes. The 
under garments were of coarse cotton. A leather belt 
encircled the body; on the right side was suspended the 
tomahawk, to be used as a hatchet; on the left the hunting- 
knife, powder-horn, bag and other appendages indispen- 
sable for a hunter. Each person bore his trusty rifle; and, 
as the party slowly made their toilsome way amid the 
shrubs, and over the logs and loose rocks that accident 
had thrown into the obscure trail which they were follow- 
ing, each man kept a sharp lookout, as though danger or 
a lurking enemy was near. Their garments were soiled 
and rent, the unavoidable result of long traveling and ex- 
posure to the heavy rains that had fallen; for the weather 
had been stormy and most uncomfortable, and they had 
traversed a mountainous wilderness for several hundred 
miles. 

"The leader of the party was of full size, with a hardy, 

1 "Daniel Boone," by John M. Peck; Jared Spark's " Library of American 
Biography," XIII, p. 23. 
Kentucky — 2 



1 8 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

robust, sinewy frame, and keen, piercing hazel eyes, that 
glanced with quickness at every object as they passed on, 
now cast forward in the direction they were traveling for 
signs of an old trail, and in the next moment directed 
askance into the dense thicket, or into the deep ravine, 
as if watching some concealed enemy. The reader will 
recognize in this man the pioneer, Boone, at the head of 
his companions. 

"Towards the time of the setting sun, the party had 
reached the summit of the mountain range, up which they 
had toiled for some three or four hours, and which had 
bounded their prospect to the West during the day. Here 
new and indescribable scenery opened to their view. Be- 
fore them, for an immense distance, as if spread out on a 
map, lay the rich and beautiful vales watered by the Ken- 
tucky River; . . . far in the vista was seen a beautiful 
expanse of level country, over which the buffalo, deer, and 
other forest animals, roamed unmolested. . . ." ^ 

Here this little party which had come to spy out the 
land of promise, slept in peace and security, charmed 
with the view of as perfect a bit of nature's own handi- 
work as travelers have ever gazed upon. The days and 
weeks passed by in rapid succession; summer ripened 
into autumn and the dry leaves fell,^ while they still 
lingered upon the border-land of the vast Kentucky 
wilderness which they already began to consider their 
home. Then moving their camp from point to point, as 

1 Boone himself made no such gorgeous story of it, "We proceeded success- 
fully," he says (Filson's "Kentucke"), "after a long and fatiguing journey 
through a mountainous wilderness, in a Westward direction; on the seventh 
day of June following, we found ourselves on the Red River . . . and from 
the top of an eminence, saw with pleasure the beautiful level of Kentucky." 

2 Peck, p. 25. 



VANGUARD OF THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 19 

curiosity or the demands of the chase impelled, some- 
times following the broad roads which the vast herds 
of buffalo, deer and other game had made in their visits 
to the salt springs scattered at intervals through the 
region, sometimes turning aside to force a new passage 
through the matted underbrush or the tall canebrakes, 
they pushed steadily onward into the land of promise. 

The extreme caution which they had observed upon 
their first entrance into the wilderness had rapidly given 
place to a sense of perfect security, as they became more 
and more certain that the country was free from savage 
inhabitants. 

Finally for convenience of hunting, and in order that 
they might explore more widely, Boone and Stewart left 
the main camp and pushed on to the banks of the Ken- 
tucky (Louisa) River. "... We practiced hunting," says 
Boone, "with great success until the twenty-second day of 
December. This day John Stewart and I had a pleasing 
ramble; but fortune changed the scene in the close of it. 
We had passed through a great forest, on which stood 
myriads of trees; some gay with blossoms, others rich with 
fruit. Nature was here a series of wonders and a fund 
of delight. Here she displayed her ingenuity and industry 
in a variety of flowers and fruits, beautifully colored, 
elegantly shaped and charmingly flavored; and we were 
diverted with innumerable animals presenting themselves 
perpetually to our view." 

All this sounds, to one who has later wandered through 
those same forests at the Christmas season, as though the 
climate of this region has greatly changed since 1769, or, 
as is more likely, that John Filson, although professing 
to act as Boone's amanuensis, could not resist the tempta- 



20 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

tion to adorn the narrative, and carelessly put on it a cos- 
tume quite inappropriate to the season. 

If, however, the author's testimony is not invalidated 
by this obviously imaginative description, we may venture 
to accept the next statement^ which he puts into the mouth 
of his hero: 

"In the decline of the day, near Kentucky River, as we 
ascended the brow of a small hill, a number of Indians 
rushed out of a thick cane-brake upon us, and made us 
prisoners. The time of our sorrow was now arrived, and 
the scene fully opened. The Indians plundered us of 
what we had, and kept us in confinement seven days, 
treating us with common savage usage." 

The captives, however, knowing the Indian character 
by long experience, manifested no desire to escape, and 
thus caused their captors to relax their vigilance. At 
last "... in the dead of night," says Boone, "as we 
lay in a thick cane-brake by a large fire, when sleep had 
locked up their senses, my situation not disposing me for 
rest, I touched my companion, and gently awoke him. 
We improved this favorable opportunity and departed, 
leaving them to take their rest. ..." 

With that instinct for direction which is the sixth sense 
of the real ^woodsman and which is quite unintelligible to 
men accustomed always to walk in beaten paths, Boone 
and his companion started at once for their old camp 
which lay miles away, in the dense forests now shrouded 
in the darkness of night. All the next day they traveled 
in a direct line, and when at last they reached the camp 
they found it plundered and desolate. ^ Their four com- 

1 These extracts are taken from Boone's narrative in Filson's "Kentucke." 

2 Here ends the story of John Findlay, the first white man to sing the praise 



VANGUARD OF THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 21 

panions had disappeared, leaving nothing to tell the tale 
of their fate. The condition of the camp seemed to indi- 
cate that they had perished at the hands of wandering 
Indians, though in that case it seems likely that some of 
the savages, in their frequent meetings with Boone, would 
have boasted, as was their custom, of the destruction of 
these men who had dared to attend him upon this first 
deliberate attempt to seize their hunting grounds.^ 

Boone and Stewart, thus left alone in the heart of the 
wilderness, in the dead of winter, and totally destitute of 
provisions, except such as they could obtain by the spar- 
ing use of the little powder which they had secured when 
escaping from their savage captors, were in the greatest 
peril; but they showed no desire to escape from so re- 
markable a situation. Instead they constructed another 
camp and continued as before to amuse themselves by 
hunting and exploring trips, waiting for they knew not 
what, but happy in the beauty and wildness of their sur- 
roundings. 

As the weeks passed by the little supply of ammunition 
began to grow dangerously small, and they were almost at 
an end of their resources when another marvel of pioneer 
courage and loyalty occurred. Alarmed by the long ab- 
sence of his brother. Squire Boone^ started from his North 
Carolina home, with a single companion, to make the long 
journey across the mountains in search of him. For any 
but the most skillful of woodsmen such a task would have 
been indeed hopeless. With no chart to guide them, with 

of a dwelling in the wilderness of Kentucky. What his end was, no man can 
tell. Collins, II, p. 56. 

1 Bogart's "Daniel Boone," p. 62. 

2 The tenth and next younger of old Squire Boone's children. There were 
seven sons and four daughters. Hartley, p. 14; Bogart, p. 63. 



22 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

no knowledge of the location of the wanderers, amid 
thousands of miles of wild, unbroken forest, it seems little 
short of a miracle that early in January, 1770, they came 
upon the camp in which Daniel Boone and Stewart had 
spent the previous night.^ Even after this discovery it 
might have been a sufficiently difficult task for any but 
an Indian or a pioneer to find the wanderers. But to a 
woodsman so new a trail could not be missed, and shortly 
afterwards Daniel and Stewart were startled to see two 
human forms approaching through the forest. Instantly 
alert and on guard against surprises they watched the 
figures until, as they came within range of clear vision, 
Daniel recognized the beloved form of his faithful brother. 

This meeting was shortly followed by a new and terrible 
disaster. In spite of the lesson which Boone's and Stew- 
art's recent captivity should have taught them, the party 
was soon divided for purposes of more effective explora- 
tion and hunting, Daniel and Stewart ranging far beyond 
the camp,^ and "far beyond," to a Kentucky pioneer, 
meant no slight distance. The lurking savages, who had 
doubtless been waiting for just such an opportunity, sud- 
denly attacked them, and, though Daniel Boone managed 
to make his escape, Stewart was killed. Thus passed the 
first gallant martyr to the cause of western exploration, 
of whom the Kentucky annals can speak with certainty. 
A second soon followed. 

The unnamed companion of Squire Boone, not so ex- 

1 "About this time," says Boone, in a more matter-of-fact and characteristic 
manner than Filson usually allows him to speak, "my brother. Squire Boone, 
with another adventurer, who came to explore the country shortly after us, 
was wandering through the forest, determined to find me, if possible, and acci- 
dentally found our camp." See also Collins, II, p. 57. 

2 Bogart's "Boone," p. 65; Collins, II, pp. 56 and 57. 



VANGUARD OF THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 23 

pert a woodsman as his associates, wandered from the 
camp and was lost — at least so runs the story which seems 
most probable, as this man never again appeared among 
his friends in Carolina.^ Filson, however, gives a less 
pleasing account as coming from the lips of Daniel Boone. 
"The man who came with my brother," he says, as though 
ignorant of his very name, or too indignant to honor him 
by preserving it, "returned home by himself. We were 
then in a dangerous, helpless situation, exposed daily to 
perils and death amongst the savages and wild beasts; not 
a white man in the country but ourselves." ^ 

This would seem to most men a desperate condition, 
but it would be the height of absurdity to expend sym- 
pathy upon two such men in such a situation. They had 
chosen the wilderness because they loved it and because, 
in Filson's simple phrase, Daniel Boone considered him- 
self " an instrument ordained to settle the wilderness." ^/ 
And such indeed he was. "On the safety of these men," 
says Bogart,"* "rested the hope of a nation. Their defeat, 
their captivity, their death, would have chilled the vigour 
of enterprise, . . . without Boone the settlements could 
not have been upheld, and the conquest of Kentucky 
would have been reserved for the immigrants of the 
nineteenth century." 

Until May, 1770, the two brothers remained together 
in the rude huts which they constructed as circum- 
stances required, watched over by the Providence of 
Heaven and unobserved by the savage hunting parties 

1 Peck's "Boone," p. 31; Bogart's "Boone," p. 66; variation of story, Collins, 

II. P- 57- 

2 Filson's "Kentucke." 
8 Filson's "Kentucke." 

* Bogart's "Boone," p. 80, 



24 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

which the return of spring brought again from the Indian 
countries to the north and south of them. Then, as 
their hunting trips had reduced their scant supply of 
powder to the danger point, it was decided that Squire 
should "return home to the settlement by himself for a 
new recruit of horses and ammunition," leaving his 
brother alone, "without bread, salt or sugar, without 
company of my fellow creatures, or even a horse or 
dog."^ 

This journey occupied almost three months ^ and they 
would have been lonely months indeed for one by nature 
less inclined to solitude. "I confess," says Daniel Boone, 
"I never before was under greater necessity of exercis- 
ing philosophy and fortitude. A few days I passed un- 
comfortably." But on the whole they were doubtless 
happy and interesting months to the solitary woodsman, 
as he watched the wilderness blossom as a rose and added 
every day valuable specimens to his collection of peltries. 
As a pleasant diversion he made an extensive tour of 
exploration to the southwest, examining the country along 
the Salt and Green Rivers, alarmed at times by signs of 
prowling bands of Indians, but always managing to avoid 
them. Frequently he was forced to camp without a fire, 
and at times slept in the midst of the dense canebrakes 
to avoid detection. 

" Thus," he says, as if forgetting even the " few " un- 
comfortable days, " through an uninterrupted scene of 
sylvan pleasures,-"' I spent the time until the 27th day of 

1 Filson's "Kentucke." 

2 May I to July 27, 1770. Collins, II, p. 57, and Filson's "Kentucke," for 
dates. 

3 Filson's "Kentucke." Lord Byron had evidently been reading Filson when 
he wrote: 



VANGUARD OF THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 25 

July [1770] following, when my brother, to my great 
felicity, met me according to appointment, at our old 
camp. . . ." Danger signs which could not escape the 
quick eyes of the brothers having convinced them that 
Indian hunting parties were again abroad, they now turned 
southvt^ard, and began explorations along the Cumber- 
land, where they found game even more abundant, but 
a much poorer quality of soil.^ Returning northward in 
March, 1771, they pushed on to the banks of the Ken- 
tucky, where they selected a point which they considered 
especially well adapted for the construction of the perma- 
nent settlement which they were eagerly planning to estab- 
lish,^ and, with this great idea before them, they packed a 
load of peltries upon each horse and retraced the toilsome 
road over the mountains to their families upon the banks 
of the Yadkin. 

Daniel Boone had spent some two years in the wilder- 
ness of Kentucky, during most of which time he had 
neither tasted bread nor seen the face of man, with the 
exception of his brother, his unfortunate fellow hunters 
now gone, and a few straggling Indians more animal than 
human; ^ but at its close he was a real Kentuckian, the 
first Kentuckian, ready at all times to speak in unmeas- 



" Of all men, saving Sylla, the man-slayer, 
Who passes for, in life and death, most lucky, 
Of the great names which in our faces stare, 
The General Boone, backwoodsman of Kentucky, 
Was happiest of mortals anywhere." 

—"Don Juan," VIII, Ixi. 
Again and again the dominant note of the Boone narrative is the happiness 
which came to him in his solitude. 

1 Peck's "Boone," pp. 33 and 34. 

2 Peck's "Boone," p. 34; Bogart's "Boone," p. 79. 

3 Collins, II, p. 57; Peck's "Boone," p. 34. 



26 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

ured praise of the land which, he says, "I esteemed a 
second paradise." ^ 

While Boone was thus wandering alone, supposing him- 
self the only white man in the region, a party of forty hunt- 
ers from "New river, Holston and Clinch," in Virginia, led 
by the wonderful stories which they had heard of the abun- 
dance of game in the district, left their homes and started 
upon a hunting expedition.^ Provided with dogs, traps 
and a hunter's outfit, they started westward and, passing 
through the Cumberland Gap, arrived in what is now 
Wayne County, Kentucky. Camping a few miles below the 
Cumberland River, they established a depot for trade with 
Indian hunters, and from this central point small bands 
wandered in various directions, hunting or exploring as 
their fancy dictated. Once in five weeks, according to 
agreement, they were to " round up " at headquarters, de- 
posit their pelts and relate their experiences. But the 
" calls of the wild " were too diverse for such a plan to be 
feasible. One band after another deserted the expedition, 
each being intent upon its own object. Ten of them con- 
structed transports, loaded them with skins and wild meat, 
and embarked upon the Cumberland for the Spanish fort at 
Natchez, whence they made the overland journey home- 
ward, comforted by the possession of considerable Spanish 
gold. Some lost themselves in the wilderness and doubtless 
fell a prey to prowling savages; while Colonel James Knox, 
the real leader of the expedition, with nine kindred spirits, 
pushed on deeper and deeper into the trackless wilder- 
ness, and near the present site of Greensburg, in Green 

1 Filson's "Kentucke." 

2-Collins, I, p. 17, II, pp. 367 and 417; Durrett's "Kentucky Centenary," 
p. 30. 




D< 



Be 



From a skftcli by John Trumbull, now in p'/ssession of Colunel Reuben T. Durrett. It is 
signed " J. T. 1776 " and is drawn upjn untanned deer skin, upon the reverse side nj 
which the hair still appears. 



VANGUARD OF THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 27 

County, built another trading station, from which as a 
center he carried his explorations as far as Barren, Hart 
and other neighboring counties. Knox and his com- 
panions remained two years in the Kentucky district, 
wondering, as Boone wondered, at the indescribable fertil- 
ity and beauty of the land, revelling in the game which 
was everywhere abundant, and treasuring up experiences 
which were to lose nothing in the telling, when they should 
return to the settlements beyond the mountains. To them, 
by common consent, has been given the name, "long 
hunters," and their stories, added to those related by 
Boone and his comrades, caused many a gallant woods- 
man to migrate to this land of promise, even at the risk 
of life and fortune. 

No serious attempt to plant a settlement in the dis- 
trict ^ was made, however, until 1773, when Daniel Boone, 
"having successfully disposed of his possessions in North 
Carolina, left his home in the Yadkin Valley and, accom- 
panied by his own and several other North Carolina 
families, started westward along the hunters' trail." 
They were joined, at points along the route, by some forty 
other bold pioneers, and thus reinforced, the second immi- 
grant party pushed on toward the wilderness. Their 
march was necessarily slow, as they were impeded by 
their cattle and pack horses; but at last they reached 
Cumberland Gap, and were preparing to cross the moun- 
tains, when a band of Indians suddenly attacked them 
from behind, and six of the company were killed. The 

1 Dr. Thomas Walker had secured a large land grant about twenty miles 
west of Cumberland Gap, and Joseph Martin had established a settlement 
within it, at a point a few miles east of where Jellico now stands (1769), but 
the Indians had proved so hostile that the enterprise had soon been aban- 
doned. Winsor's "Western Movement," p. 21. 



28 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

remainder rallied at once and routed the enemy; but such 
a disaster, at the beginning of their journey, so disheartened 
them that they returned to their homes, and the second 
attempt to settle the region failed upon the borderland.^ 
So great an effect did this disaster have upon the people 
of North Carolina that no new expedition was attempted 
during the year.^ 

With the spring of 1774, however, came a flood of ad- 
venturers intent upon securing land claims by means of 
"improvers' cabins," and without the dangers incident 

1 Collins, II, p. 57. 

2 The latter part of the year 1773, however, witnessed the arrival in the region 
of a large party of land surveyors, sent out by Lord Dunmore, Governor of 
Virginia, in the hope of aiding the process of settlement in the West, which he 
conceived to be the best means of protecting the Virginia settlements against 
Indian attacks. Bogart's "Daniel Boone," p. 99. 

Captain Thomas Bullett, the three McAfee brothers, James, George and 
Robert, and James Harrod and James Douglas were the leading spirits. Robert 
McAfee's "Journal," Durrett MSS., and James McAfee's "Journal," ibid., 
Collins, I, p. 248. 

After holding a council with the Shawnee Indians at Chillicothe, the party 
broke up. Bullett, with a few followers, passed down to the Falls of the Ohio, 
where he spent several weeks, and made the first survey of the site of Louisville 
(Collins, I, p. 17; and II, p. 94), and of the county which bears his name. 

Another party, under the McAfee brothers, ascended the Kentucky River 
to the site of Frankfort, of which they made the first survey. See Robert Mc- 
Afee's "History of Kentucky," and "The Life of Robert McAfee and His 
Family," Durrett MSS. The McAfee "Journals" have recently been pub- 
lished in Appendix of Neander M. Woods' volume, "The Woods-McAfee 
Memorial," Courier- Journal Job Printing Co., of Louisville, 1905. 

A third party under Douglas examined the region near the Big Bone Lick 
and selected a site for a settlement. The following Spring he returned to the 
selected region after a winter in Virginia, and made numerous surveys along 
the Kentucky River, but death overtook him, and he found a grave in the 
wilderness where he had planned to build a home. Marshall, I, p. 36. 

None of these men, however, built even "improvers' cabins," a term which, 
in pioneer days, meant merely nominal dwellings, consisting of small squares 
of logs built breast high, and not even roofed, which were used as a means of 
technically fulfilling the letter of the laws, requiring settlement as a basis of land 
claims. Collins, II, p. 517. 



VANGUARD OF THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 29 

to actual settlement.^ So great was their number that the 
Indians, becoming alarmed for the safety of their most 
cherished hunting ground, formed a grand coalition to 
protect themselves and banish the white invader. The 
chiefs who had been present at the Council of Fort Stan- 
wix were well aware that Sir William Johnson had there 
purchased from the Iroquois a full title to the Kentucky 
district;- but such a contract could mean little to savage 
warriors, and "the Indian nations not concerned in the 
grant," as Filson tells us, "became dissatisfied with the 
prospect of a settlement which might become so dangerous 
a thorn in their side." ^ 

Lord Dunmore, then Governor of Virginia, clearly fore- 
seeing war, decided to warn the white adventurers to 
retire to the settlements beyond the mountains, and se- 
lected Daniel Boone as the messenger. On the sixth of 
June, 1774, in company with "one Michael Stoner," 
Boone started for the Falls of the Ohio and, during the 
next sixty-two days, traversed eight hundred miles of 
wilderness, returning, on August the eighth, at the head 
of a band of land surveyors who had wisely abandoned 
their labors at his word of warning.^ 

Such adventurers as refused to return, soon had cause 
to repent their excess of boldness. Indian scouting parties 
appeared on every side. The fierce Shawnees, led by 
their great chief. Cornstalk, and supported by the Miamis, 

1 Thomas Hanson's "Journal of 1774," Durrett MSS. 

2 Winsor's "Narrative and Critical History of America," VI, p. 706; Winsor's 
"Westward Movement," p. 154, for details of this conference and the resulting 
treaty. Text of treaty of Fort Stanwix, Butler's "Kentucky," Ed. 1834, Ap- 
pendix. 

3 Filson's " Kentucke." 

* Filson's "Kentucke," Butler, Ed. 1834, p. 26; Smith, p. 31; Collins, I, p. 17. 



30 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

the Delawares, the Wyandots, and other northern tribes, 
swept toward the frontier settlements of Virginia, dealing 
out death by torture to all white men who fell into their 
hands. ^ They burst Hke a flood upon the little stockades 
guarding the Virginia settlements, while detached bands 
of warriors plundered the scattered farmhouses and 
massacred their inmates. 

Lord Dunmore's war ^ had begun in earnest, and 
Lord Dunmore promptly prepared to carry the fight into 
the enemy's country. Three thousand Virginia regulars 
and volunteers were mustered into service and formed 
into two armies. With one of these the Governor himself 
advanced to Fort Pitt, having directed General Andrew 
Lewis to march with the other to the mouth of the Great 
Kanawha.^ The two armies were to unite at a specified 
point on the Ohio River, and together attack the Shaw- 
nee villages scattered through the Scioto Valley. But 
Cornstalk, with a military sagacity uncommon among 
savage leaders, divined the plan, and decided to attack 
General Lewis's camp, which had been pitched at Point 
Pleasant,^ before Lord Dunmore should have time to 
arrive. 

1 More white persons were killed during the period of nominal peace, just 
before the opening of Lord Dunmore's war, than during the campaign. Winsor's 
"Narrative and Critical History of America," VI, p. 709. 

2 It was first known as "Cresap's War." See Winsor's "Narrative and 
Critical History of America," VI, pp. 707-711, for details of Cresap's connection 
with beginnings of the war, the killing of Logan's family, etc., as well as for 
examination of controversy between Virginia and Pennsylvania over the posses- 
sion of the land between the mountains and the Ohio River. 

3 General Lewis's army consisted of eleven hundred men, chiefly pioneers, 
and veteran Indian fighters. Smith's "Kentucky," pp. 31 and 32. 

4 Point Pleasant, at the junction of the Ohio and the Kanawha, was the 
rendezvous first appointed by Lord Dunmore, but, on Oct. 6, when he reached 
that point. General Lewis had not found Lord Dunmore as he had hoped. 



VANGUARD OF THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 31 

Warned of this intended attack, General Lewis at once 
took the initiative. He gave orders that Colonel Fleming's 
regiment, and that commanded by his brother, Colonel 
Charles Lewis, should reconnoiter, while he himself should 
arrange his troops for the battle. 

The reconnoitering party, marching at once, found itself 
face to face with the savages, approaching for a similar pur- 
pose (Oct. 10, 1774). Battle was instantly joined, the two 
armies being about equal in number, some eleven hundred 
each. At first things went badly for the English. The two 
colonels, Lewis and Fleming, fell mortally wounded, and 
their troops began a headlong retreat, which was checked 
only by the timely arrival of Colonel Field with a fresh 
regiment. The advantage gained from this reinforcement 
was, however, only temporary. Field was struck down 
and the savage allies, Cornstalk, Logan, Red Eagle, and 
other gallant chiefs of the coalition, pushed on to com- 
plete their victory. 

At this point General Lewis decided to try the dan- 
gerous expedient of a flank movement. He sent three 
captains, Isaac Shelby, George Mathews and John Stuart, 
with their companies, with orders to reach Crooked Creek, 
which runs into the Kanawha a little above Point Pleas- 
ant, and thence to attack the Indians in the rear. The 
movement was effected under cover of the river banks, 

Three days later he received a message from the Governor, stating that his 
plans had been changed, and ordering General Lewis to meet him in the Indian 
country north of the Ohio. This change of plan came to the ears of Cornstalk 
who resolved to attack General Lewis before he could cross the Ohio, and ac- 
complish the meeting planned by Lord Dunmore. It was while preparing to 
cross the Ohio that General Lewis received news of the approach of Cornstalk 
and his savage army. Hartley's "Boone," p. 86; Winsor's "Narrative and 
Critical History of America," VI, p. 713; Winsor's "Westward Movement," 
P- 73- 



32 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

and the Indians, startled by the fierce attack from a 
quarter so unexpected, concluded that reinforcements had 
arrived and, fleeing across the Ohio, retired to their villages 
on the Scioto.^ Thus was defeat turned into victory in 
"the most hotly contested fight which the Indians ever 
made against the English . . . the first considerable battle 
which they had fought without the aid of the French." ^ 

Meanwhile Lord Dunmore with the main army had 
marched toward the Scioto, ravaging as he went. 

Cornstalk, upon reaching his own country, found that 
the news of his defeat, and the damage already done by 
Lord Dunmore's army had completely disheartened his 
braves, who were clamoring for peace. A deputation was 
accordingly sent to Lord Dunmore at Camp Charlotte, 
and a treaty was arranged in which the allies surrendered 
all claim to Kentucky, just as the Six Nations had already 
done at Fort Stanwix.^ The treaty guaranteed that no 
white man should henceforth be molested on the Ohio 
River, and that no Indian should pass to its southern bank. 

1 Hartley, p. 89; Winsor's "Westward Movement," p. 73. 

2 Winsor's "Westward Movement," p. 73. The details of the Point Pleasant 
Campaign of 1774 are given in great detail in the " Journal" of Colonel William 
Fleming, Durrett MSS. (Fleming). It contains some 42 closely written pages 
(Durrett's typewritten copy) and contains lists of the ofl&cers and a list of the 
slain. Also John Stuart's account of the Battle of Point Pleasant. Durrett MSS. 

3 Only the claim of the Cherokees was now left to be met and that was 
shortly done at the Treaty of Wataga. 



CHAPTER II 

TRANSYLVANIA, THE LAST EXPERIMENT IN PROPRIETARY 
GOVERNMENT 

The victory of Point Pleasant rendered the navigation 
of the Ohio comparatively safe for the time being, and 
also greatly reduced the dangers incident to a visit to 
the Kentucky wilderness. The fame of the region had 
spread prodigiously during Lord Dunmore's war, as 
hunters and surveyers, fresh from the glories of this ad- 
venturers' paradise, had served in the army of Virginia 
during the war, and had enlivened the monotony of camp 
life, by tales of adventure well calculated to quicken the 
pulse, and fire the enthusiasm of their fellow-soldiers.^ 
Thus the "Western fever" which before had attacked only 
the most adventurous, spread like an epidemic, men en- 
couraging themselves with the hope that, since the sign- 
ing of the treaty, settlers would be able to raise their log 
cabins and plant their corn in peace. That this was the 
vainest of delusions, events presently showed, but it oper- 
ated powerfully to awaken a new interest in the great, 
mysterious West; so powerfully, indeed, that corporate en- 
terprise, regardless of the failures of the Loyal and the 
Ohio Companies of earlier days, began again to raise its 
head, and look toward the fair lands of the Ohio. 

Whether Daniel Boone had made his first great journey 

1 "'When the soldiers came home they told us about Kentucky, a new dis- 
covered, wonderful country." "Autobiography and Diary of Daniel Trabue." 
Unpublished MS., Durrett Collection. 

Kentucky — 3 33 



34 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

through Kentucky as the confidential agent of a great 
land corporation, later to announce itself as the Transyl- 
vania Company, no one can assert with authority; but it 
is certain that, not many months after the battle of Point 
Pleasant, he was acting as the trusted and secret agent 
of such a corporation.^ 

Colonel Richard Henderson, a native Virginian, who for 
some years had filled the position of Judge on the bench 
of the Superior Court of North Carolina, had seen in the 
rising West, a vision of a wider field for his really great 
talents. He formed a corporation, composed of himself 
and eight associates, with the ambitious purpose of pur- 
chasing from the Cherokees a vast domain in the Kentucky 
wilderness, upon which to establish a sort of proprietary 
colony.^ It was a scheme of large dimensions, and, under 
more favorable conditions, might have proved successful; 
but, in the America of that day, where long established 
proprietorships were tottering to their fall, it was fore- 
doomed to failure. 

After making a preliminary journey through the region, 
and preparing the leading chiefs for the final settlement, 
Henderson arranged a council of the " Big Chiefs" and war- 
riors of the Cherokee nation, at the Sycamore Shoals on 
the Wataga River.^ Some twelve hundred Indians were 
present and, with great formality, a pompous and lengthy 
deed was drawn and signed, conveying to Richard Hen- 
derson and his associates, to be enjoyed by them in a cor- 
porate capacity as "Proprietors of the Colony of Transyl- 
vania," a district composing about "one half of the modern 

1 Winsor's "Westward Movement," p. 8i; Bogart's "Boone," p. ii8. 

2 Brown's "Political Beginnings of Kentucky," p. 26. 

3 Ibid., p. 25. 



TRANSYLVANIA 35 

state of Kentucky and the adjacent part of Tennessee, lying 
within the southerly bend of the Cumberland." ^ This 
treaty was signed and concluded on March 17th, 1775, 
the payment of ten thousand pounds sterling, in goods, 
being made by the representatives of the Company. 

But the formal possession of such a grant was quite a 
different thing from its actual possession; for, even had 
the purchase not been illegal in a number of ways, - there 
still remained the task of providing for the settlement of 
this wilderness. As a first step toward this end, and 
while negotiations for the purchase were in progress, Hen- 
derson arranged for Boone to mark a road from the older 
settlements westward to the new possessions; and, as soon 
as the success of the purchase seemed assured, the task of 
opening the famous highway since known as "Boone's 
Wilderness Road" was begun. "Having collected," to 
quote the pioneer's own simple account of the achieve- 
ment, "a number of enterprising men, well armed, we pro- 
ceeded with all possible expedition until we came within 
fifteen miles of where Boonesborough now stands, and 
there we were fired upon by a party of Indians that killed 

1 Winsor's "Westward Movement," p. 82; see also Marshall, I, p. 13; 
Butler, 1834 Ed., p. 27. 

2 This purchase was illegal from a number of points of view. 

(a) It was contrary to the charter rights of the Virginia Colony whose grant 
included this territory. See Macdonald's "Select Charters," for Virginia Char- 
ters of 1606-1609. 

(6) It was a violation of the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which had excepted 
this region from territory open to colonization. 

(c) In case the treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768) were ultimately accepted as 
binding, as it subsequently was, the purchase was a violation of rights gained 
under it, as the Transylvania district lay within the grant there made to the 
King by the Six Nations. Text of Treaty, Butler's " Appendix." 

(d) It was contrary to a Virginia statute of 1705, which declared that no 
private citizen could acquire lands from the Indians. Cf. Durrett's "Kentucky 
Centenary," p. 38. 



36 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

two, and wounded two of our number, yet, although sur- 
prised and taken at a disadvantage, we stood our ground. 
This was the twentieth of March, 1775. Three days 
after, we were fired upon again, and two men killed and 
three wounded. Afterward we proceeded on to Kentucky 
River without opposition, and on the fifth day of April 
began to erect the fort of Boonesborough at a salt-lick, 
about sixty yards from the river, on the South side." ^ 

Thus while Henderson was closing the bargain with 
the Cherokee nation, Boone, with his gallant band of 
thirty ^ men, was starting upon the second stage of the 
undertaking, that of preparing to force a settlement of 
the lands, that they might quickly rise in value and pro- 
vide returns upon the vested capital. In the "trace" 
which he was laboriously making, would soon follow 
the pack horses and covered wagons which even to-day 
mark the advance of civilization along our western fron- 
tier, for "in all history the road has been the forerunner 
of civilization." ^ 

Colonel Henderson, however, had no intention of acting 
as a mere financial promoter of the enterprise of settling 
the wilderness. Boone and his company had been sent 
ahead to open up the way, in order that Henderson might 
follow, after assuring himself that every precaution had 
been taken to secure as clear a title as the Cherokees were 
able to give. His eagerness to take part in the dangers of 
the wilderness, and in the toils of the first planting, was 

1 Boone's "Autobiography" as dictated to John Filson. Cf. Hartley's 
" Boone," Appendix. 

2 Felix Walker, one of Boone's road-making party, made an autobiograph- 
ical statement in 1824, in which he declared, "Our company, when united, 
amounted to thirty persons." 

3 Hulbert's "Boone's Wilderness Road," p. 94. 



TRANSYLVANIA 37 

manifested by the fact that, on March 20, 1775, only 
three days after the signing of the treaty of Wataga, and, 
as it chanced, the very day of Boone's first encounter with 
the Indians, he left Wataga with some thirty men, and 
followed the Wilderness Road toward his new dominion, 
intending to set up a land office in the fort which Boone 
had been ordered to build. Henderson felt the dignity of 
his mission in no small degree, and his diary ^ of the trip 
shows that he considered no incident of that historic jour- 
ney to be without interest. "Having finished my Treaty 
with the Indians at Wataugah," it begins, "Sett out for 
Louisa and arrived at John Shelbeys in the evening — 
Tuesday the 21st, went to Mr. John Seviers in Company 
of Col Williams and Col Hart and staid that day — 
Wednesday the 22nd — Messrs Williams and Hart set off 
Home & I staid with Mr. Sevier — Thursday 23rd, Still 
at Mr. Seviers — N. B. Because our Horses were lost . . . 
as Messrs Hart and Luttrell made a poor Hand of Trav- 
eling." ^ 

And thus the diary continues, recounting, day by day, 
the petty annoyances of frontier camp life. It informs us 
that Henderson found it necessary to make a house to 
secure the wagons which could be dragged no farther; and 
that "Sam'l Henderson's and John Farrier's Horses took 
a Scare with their packs. Run away with Sams' Saddle 
&: Briddle," etc., etc. The entry of Friday, the 7th of 

* The " Diary " is reprinted in part in Hulbert's " Boone's Wilderness 
Road," pp. 101-107. There, however, it runs only up to Thursday the 20th, 
while the copy given in Collins, II, p. 49S, condenses the part dealing with the 
trip and adds a much more detailed account of the period from April 20th to 
July 12th, a period of great interest in the history of the Transylvania Colony. 

2 Hart, Luttrell and Williams were all members of the Corporation of Tran- 
sylvania. 



38 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

April, however, is more important; "About 11 o'clock re- 
ceived a letter from Mr. Littereal's camp that were five 
persons kill'd on the road to the Cantuckee by Indians. 
Capt. Hart uppon the receipt of this News Retreated 
back with his Company and determin'd to Settle in the 
Valley to make corn for the Cantuckey People. The Same 
Day, Received a letter from Dan Boone that his Com- 
pany was fired uppon by Indians, Kill'd Two of his men — 
tho he kept the ground and saved the Baggage &c." 

The letter from Boone here referred to is addressed, 
"Col. Richard Henderson — these with care," and reads 
thus:^ 

"Dear Colonel: After my compliments to you, I shall 
acquaint you of our misfortune. On March the 25th a 
party of Indians fired on my Company about half an 
hour before day, and killed Mr. Tevetty and his negro, 
and wounded Mr. Walker very deeply, but I hope he will 
recover. 

"On March 28th, as we were hunting for provisions, 
we found Samuel Tate's son, who gave us an account 
that the Indians fired on their camp on the 27 day. My 
brother and I went down and found two men killed and 
scalped, Thomas McDowell and Jeremiah McPheeters. 
I have sent a man down to all the lower companies in 
order to gather them all to the mouth of the Otter Creek. 
My advice to you, Sir, is to come or send as soon as possi- 
ble, your company is desired greatly, for the people are 
very uneasy, but are willing to stay and venture their 

1 Boone to Henderson, April i, 1775. This letter appears in full in Collins, 
Vol. II, p. 498; Bogart's "Boone," p. 120, also copies it, giving the same date; 
but Hartley's "Boone," p. 98, presents it under the date April 15, 1775, evi- 
dently an error. 



TRANSYLVANIA 39 

lives with you; and now is the time to frustrate the inten- 
tions of the Indians, and keep the country, whilst we are 
in it. If we give way to them now, it will ever be the case. 
This day we start from the battleground, for the mouth 
of Otter Creek, where we shall immediately erect a fort, 
which will be done before you can come or send — then 
we can send ten men to meet you if you send for them. 

" I am, Sir, your most obedient 

Daniel Boone." 
"N. B. We stood on the ground and guarded our baggage 
till day, and lost nothing. We have about fifteen miles 
to Cantuck (Kentucky River) at Otter Creek." 

The news contained in this letter spread through the 
district with astonishing rapidity, revealing to many an 
adventurer the unwelcome fact that the victory at Point 
Pleasant had not completely settled the Indian question. 
In his entry of April 8th, Henderson says: "Met about 
40 persons Returning from the Cantuckey, on Acct. of 
the Late Murder by Indians. Could prevail on only one 
to return. Several Virginians who were with us turned 
back from here." 

After dispatching Captain Wm. Cocke, to inform Boone 
of their approach, Henderson and his Company followed 
as rapidly as the difficulties of the way permitted, but 
the next day they met another band of fugitives, nineteen 
in number, who were making all haste to get out of the 
"land of promise." A few of these yielded to Henderson's 
persuasion, and joined in the march toward Boonesbor- 
ough, where they all arrived in safety, on the twentieth 
of April, 1775, the very day upon which began the proc- 
ess of penning up General Gage in the rebellious town of 
Boston. "We were saluted," the colonel adds, with evi- 



40 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

dent satisfaction, " by a running fire of about 25 guns, all 
that were then at the fort — Men appeared in high spirits 
and much rejoiced at our arrival." 

Thus did the last of America's Lords Proprietors enter 
his domain, a little stockade containing a few rough log 
cabins and surrounded by a virgin wilderness of some 
twenty million acres. Presumably this was a good place 
to try again the ancient experiment of a Lord Proprietor- 
ship, but we can now see that, even under the most ideal 
conditions, no such system of government could have 
lasted long in the America of 1775. The winds of politi- 
cal doctrine had long been blowing in a direction quite 
contrary to such an arrangement, as the heirs of the Penns 
and the Calverts had already come to understand. 

And, in the case of the Transylvania Colony, conditions 
were by no means ideal. In the first place the presence of 
some two hundred and thirty men, with claims established 
at various points in Kentucky, before the organization 
of the Transylvania movement, and resting upon the au- 
thority of Virginia, whose laws had been openly violated 
by the purchase of Wataga, augured ill for the peace of 
the Lords Proprietors. 

These claims were for the most part located in the vi- 
jcinity of three so-called settlements, Harrodsburg, Boiling 
Spring, and St. Asaph, and to the first of these must be 
ascribed the honor of being the first permanent settlement 
in Kentucky. As early as June 16, 1774, it had been laid 
out by Captain James Harrod and some thirty compan- 
ions,^ each man being assigned a town lot of one-half acre 

1 Names, Collins, II, p. 517. One of these companions of Harrod was James 
Harlan, father of Hon. James Harlan, one of the authors of Kentucky's Civil 
and Criminal Code. He was also the grandfather of Mr. Justice Harlan of the 



TRANSYLVANIA 4 1 

and an "out lot" of ten acres. They had been In the 
midst of the interesting process of making these assign- 
ments, when Daniel Boone and Michael Stoner arrived 
with Governor Dunmore's warning that the Northern In- 
dians were about to take the war path, and, in spite of 
the urgency of his mission, Boone had taken time to as- 
sist the settlers in this task, in return for which he had 
been assigned a lot with the rest. After the peace, Har- 
rod and his Company were among the first to recross 
the mountains, and, by March 15, 1775, they had reoc- 
cupied their village, which has never since that day been 
completely abandoned.^ 

Thus, so far as Harrodsburg was concerned, it was 
hardly to be expected that the overlordship of the Transyl- 
vania Company would be permanently accepted without 
question, even though Henderson was wise enough not 
to attempt to interfere with land titles which had been 
already completed. 

The other two claim centers. Boiling Spring and St. 
Asaph (sometimes called Logan's Fort) had not as yet 
risen to the dignity of fortified stations, and indeed were 
not in any sense settlements, when Henderson arrived 
at Boonesborough; but they did represent claims, and 
claims entered and surveyed without the consent or 
knowledge of the Transylvania Company. Such claims 
as these — which had been registered and fully paid up, 
according to the conditions laid down by Virginia law — 

United States Supreme Court. Another was Major Silas Harlan in whose honor 
Harlan County was afterwards named. 

1 Collins, II, p. 517. Here also are summarized the proofs that Harrodsburg, 
and not Boonesborough, was the first settlement in Kentucky. The name was 
first written Harrodstown, then, for a time, it was called Oldtown, and finally it 
received the name Harrodsburg, which it still retains. See Collins, II, p. 605. 



42 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

were of course safe, but there were others where these 
conditions had not been fully met, and to these the pre- 
tensions of the Transylvania Company might mean serious 
complications. 

There can be little doubt that the Company was from 
the first in very unpleasant uncertainty as to what would 
be the attitude of these claim-holders toward its preten- 
sions, and that uncertainty was greatly increased by the 
news, which shortly reached Boonesborough, that Lord 
Dunmore, Governor of Virginia, had, on March 21, 1775, 
issued a proclamation denouncing, in unmeasured terms, 
"One Richard Henderson and other disorderly persons, 
his associates, who, under pretense of a purchase from the 
Indians, contrary to aforesaid orders and regulations of 
His Majesty, has set up a claim to lands of the crown 
within the limits of the colony." The proclamation 
strictly enjoined "All Justices of the Peace, Sheriffs and 
other officers, civil and m.ilitary, to use their utmost en- 
deavors to prevent the unwarrantable and illegal designs 
of the said Henderson and his abettors.^ " 

The effect of this Proclamation was, of course, to array 
Virginia against the Transylvania Company,^ and ulti- 
mately to shatter the faith of such as might otherwise 
have been disposed to take Henderson and his Company 
at their own valuation.^ Of these latter there were few, 
for the Kentucky pioneer embodied, to a remarkable de- 

1 Copy of Lord Dunmore's Proclamation in Durrett MSS. Lord Dunmore, 
in the Proclamation, does not complain that the Transylvania Company has 
violated the law of Virginia which forbade the purchasing, by private citizens, 
of land from the Indians, but bases his proclamation upon the King's purpose 
to have all these lands surveyed in strips and sold at auction. 

2 Durrett's "Centenary of Kentucky," p. 38. 

3 Governor Martin of North Carolina also promptly denounced the Wataga 
purchase as illegal. See Ramsey's "History of Tennessee," p. 126. 



TRANSYLVANIA 43 

gree, the spirit of personal liberty. Accustomed as he 
had been for two years past, to take up land and abandon 
it at his pleasure, to survey where and when he chose, to 
carve a name on a tree as the record of ownership, to plant 
his corn and go his way, returning in his own good time 
to harvest his crop, he was not disposed to bow in quiet 
resignation to the over-lordship of Henderson and his 
Company.^ 

Discouraging as these facts were, they did not for a 
moment check Henderson's operations. He proceeded to 
inspect the fort which Boone had erected, and found that 
it was too small to accommodate the new party as well as 
the old. He also found that Boone had put into opera- 
tion arrangements similar to those which he had helped 
Harrod and his company to complete at Harrodsburg, the 
previous summer. He had laid out most of the good 
land adjacent to the fort, into two-acre lots, and had as- 
signed them to his company. No room was left for Colo- 
nel Henderson and his men, who, therefore, decided to 
erect a fort on the opposite side of a large lick, near the 
river bank, some three hundred yards distant. Accord- 
ingly, having marked off fifty-four lots about this new site, 
Henderson gave notice that they would be assigned, at a 
drawing to be held the evening of April the twenty-second. 

At this point arose the first serious dispute over land 
claims. Robert and Samuel McAfee, whom Henderson 
had met escaping from the district only a few days before, 
and had persuaded to return with him, refused to draw, 
stating that they preferred to return to their claims, some 
fifty miles down the Kentucky River. "I informed them 
myself, in the hearing of all attending," says Hender- 

1 Collins, II, p. 509. 



44 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

son,^ "that such settlement should not entitle them to 
lands from us." Here then is the first explicit statement 
of the Transylvania Company with reference to land 
grants, Henderson plainly announcing that the days of 
squatter ownership within the region, covered by the 
Wataga purchase, were at an end. 

A few days later. Captain John Floyd, leader of a 
Company of thirty Virginia settlers, who had a camp on 
Dick's River, came to Henderson to learn upon what 
terms he and his followers might secure land from the 
Transylvania Company. Henderson, knowing that Floyd 
was deputy surveyor of Fincastle County (a rival juris- 
diction), not unnaturally suspected him of being a spy 
sent to gather damaging evidence against the Company, 
and so the gallant Floyd, " as frank and honest a gentle- 
man as ever donned the hunting shirt," got very little in- 
formation in reply to his questions.^ 

While Captain Floyd was still at Boonesborough, wait- 
ing for a definite answer to his questions, there appeared 
in the station two other noted pioneers. Colonel Thomas 
Slaughter and Captain James Harrod,^ intent upon simi- 
lar business. On May 8th, Henderson records in his 
"Journal": "Was very much embarrassed by a dis- 
pute between the above. The last mentioned gentleman 
[Colonel Harrod], with about forty men, settled on Salt 
River last year (1774), was driven off [by the Indians] 

1 Henderson's " Journal," April 21. 

2 Floyd later became surveyor-in-chief of the Transylvania Colony. Floyd's 
visit is described in Henderson's "Journal," May 3, 1775. Cf. also Durrett's 
" Centenary of Kentucky," p. 40. 

3 These pioneers from the other stations doubtless came in response to 
Boone's invitation, for in his letter to Henderson, dated April i, 1775, Boone 
says, "I have sent men down to all the lower companies in order to gather them 
all to the mouth of the Otter Creek." Collins, II, p. 498. 



TRANSYLVANIA 45 

joined the army ^ with thirty of his men, and being de- 
termined to Hve in this country, has come down this 
Spring, accompanied by about fifty men. — They had come 
on Harrod's invitation, and had got possession some time 
before we got here. 

"We were afraid," he adds, with the frankness of an 
honest man communing with his own soul, "we were 
afraid to determine in favor of the right ^ side; and, not 
being capable, if we could have wished it, to give a decree 
against them, our embarrassment was exceedingly great." 
To divert the debate and draw them a little off so disa- 
greeable a subject, Henderson proposed the assembling at 
Boonesborough, of delegates from all the stations, to draw 
up a plan of legislation; and, this suggestion having been 
agreed to, he issued instructions for the election of such 
delegates. 

This first legislative gathering of the district was called 
to order (May 23, 1775) by Colonel Henderson, who wel- 
comed its members with a short speech, prepared with 
all the formality and bombast of a Senatorial utterance. 
He pointed out the need of law in a civilized community, 
and laid great emphasis upon the dignity of the occasion. 
"You, perhaps, are fixing a palladium, or placing the 
corner stone of an edifice, the height Snd magnificence of 
whose superstructure is now in the womb of futurity and 
can only become great and glorious, in proportion to the 
excellence of its foundation." 

In urging the prompt establishment of courts of law, 

1 The army of Colonel Lewis which won the battle of Point Pleasant, Oc- 
tober 10, 1774. 

2 Here I quote from the MSS. of Henderson's "Journal," preserved in the 
Durrett collection. It differs greatly at this point from the copies which will be 
found in Collins, II, p. 500, and in Smith, p. 46. 



46 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

Henderson declares that if such things are not promptly 
attended to, " our name will become odious abroad, and 
our peace of short and precarious duration." Then, re- 
calling Lord Dunmore's Proclamation, he adds, " It would 
give honest and disinterested persons cause to suspect, that 
there are some colorable reasons, at least, for the unworthy, 
scandalous assertions, together with the groundless in- 
sinuations contained in an infamous and scurrilous libel 
lately published concerning the settlement of this country, 
the author of which avails himself of his station, and un- 
der the specious pretense of proclamation pompously 
dressed up and decorated in the garb of authority, has 
uttered invectives of the most malignant kind, and en- 
deavors to wound the good name of persons whose moral 
character would derive little advantage by being placed in 
competition with his." ^ 

After sadly misquoting the Proclamation and making 
it appear far more abusive than it really was, Hender- 
son closed his address with a request for the passage of 
suitable laws, to prevent the "wanton destruction of our 
game." 

It was in all respects the speech of a man who felt 
immoderately the dignity of his position, and wished to 
have others feel it likewise. He and his associates had 
" contemplated the establishment of a proprietary govern- 
ment as nearly as possible on the model of those existing 
by royal grant," ^ and, although unforeseen conditions had 
forced Henderson to give it rather the aspect of a democ- 
racy, he still clung tenaciously to the pomp of proprietor- 
ship. 

1 "Minutes of the Meeting," Durrett MSS. 

2 Brown's "Political Beginnings of Kentucky," p. 29. 



TRANSYLVANIA 47 

Two days after the delivery of this address, a committee 
"waited on the Proprietors with a very humble reply, 
which they asked leave to read." ^ Permission was gra- 
ciously granted, and, after the reading, the assembly at 
once proceeded to the task of legislating for the Colony. 

There was no legislation concerning the franchise, nor 
for regulating the conditions for securing land grants in 
the Colony, the latter being the very question which had 
caused the summoning of the Assembly. Upon one oc- 
casion the assembly ventured to send Todd and Harrod 
to ask the Proprietors, "what name for this colony would 
be agreeable." They promptly reported, "That it was 
their pleasure that it should be called Transylvania," — 
rather a royal sounding reply for a democratic govern- 
ment, but it settled the question. 

Next the Assembly sent Harrod, Boone, and Cocke to 
"wait on the Proprietors, and beg that they will not in- 
dulge any person whatever in granting them lands . . . 
unless they comply with the former proposals of settling 
the country," etc. 

This was an evident attempt to forestall any system of 
absentee landlords, and was therefore quite suggestive of 
popular distrust of the Company. The " Journal " gives 
us no definite record of any reply from Colonel Henderson, 
but it prints a "message received from the Proprietors," 
and signed by Henderson, which is itself as explicit an 
answer as could be framed, without making the least ref- 
erence to the petition. "To give every possible satisfac- 
tion to the good people, your constituents, we desire to ex- 

* The text of the minutes of all these proceedings is preserved in MSS. in 
the Durrett collection. It is believed to be the original " MS. Journal of the 
Convention." 



48 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

hibit our title deed from the Aborigines and first owners 
of the soil of Transylvania, and hope you will cause an 
entry to be made of the exhibition in your journal." This 
was equivalent to telling the Assembly that those in whom 
was vested the proprietorship of the Colony would make 
such arrangements as they chose, respecting the granting 
of land titles, though in form it was an invitation to the 
representatives of the people to assure themselves that the 
Transylvania Company was the real owner of the territory. 
To this proposition the Assembly at once assented, and 
"Colonel Henderson personally attended the Convention, 
with John Farrow, Attorney in fact for the head warriors 
or chiefs of the Cherokee Indians," and exposed to view 
the Wataga deed of the 17th of March, 1775. The As- 
sembly, having inspected this formal and somewhat ver- 
bose document, signed by the three great chiefs, Oconistoto 
(The King), AttacuUacullah (Little Carpenter), and Savo- 
nooko (Raven Warrior), turned their attention to the 
preparation of a formal compact to be entered into by the 
proprietors and the people. This compact, signed and 
sealed on the 27th of May, 1775, guarantees the annual 
election of delegates, religious freedom, independence of 
the Judiciary, and other similar provisions for a free gov- 
ernment. 

As the delegates returned to their respective stations, 
discussing what had been done during the session, and as 
they described to "their constituents," as Henderson had 
grandly termed them, the lofty and patronizing manner 
in which that gentleman had borne himself, the pioneers 
began to take alarm, and some who had, up to this time, 
been in sympathy with the Proprietors, showed signs of 
dawning hostility. Men who had come out into the wil- 



TRANSYLVANIA 49 

derness and, amid untold hardships and dangers, had se- 
lected estates for themselves, saw that, if Henderson and 
his company should carry out their program, the colony 
would be, not under a free government where all men are 
equal, but under a proprietary government, designed fot 
the benefit of the few. 

This discontent soon began to show itself in the drift 
of population. When Colonel Henderson had first reached 
Boonesborough (April 20, 1775), he had found that, his 
own companions included, the garrison consisted of about 
sixty-five guns. Before many weeks had elapsed that 
number had been increased to eighty, but by the middle 
of June, under the influence of the prevalent discontent, 
the number had dwindled down to fifty, and was steadily 
declining. 

That Virginia was hostile to their plans, Lord Dun- 
more's Proclamation had left no room for doubt; and that 
North Carolina was unfriendly. Governor Martin's de- 
nunciations of the Wataga treaty had made as evident. 
Moreover, the colonists themselves, at first unresisting,^ 
were every day becoming more savage in their denuncia- 
tions; and of the new settlers who were pouring into the 
region, the strongest and best avoided Boonesborough. A 
few men were still disposed to acknowledge unquestion- 
ingly the authority of the Company, and paid their charges 
without a murmur, happy in the thought that their titles 
were thus secured; but many relied wholly upon the titles 
of Virginia, without respect to the claims of the Proprietors, 
whom they denounced as impostors. 

1 Butler, 1834 Ed., p. 30, gives the impression that the Transylvania Com- 
pany was for some time very popular with the settlers. This is evidently an 
error. Cf. Collins, II, p. 512. Large entries of land were undoubtedly made 
in their land office, but chiefly by newcomers. 
Kentucky — 4 



50 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

Thus affairs became more and more complicated for the 
Company, until at last the Proprietors felt compelled to 
formulate definite measures concerning land claims, and 
such a policy was accordingly outlined. It provided first 
that there should be an agent and general manager of 
the business interests of, the Company, residing in the 
Colony and receiving a stated salary, payable out of the 
profits from the sale of lands. This important position v^as 
assigned, not to Colonel Henderson, but to another of the 
Proprietors, Colonel John Williams. 

Williams was bound down by explicit instructions. 
He was forbidden to "grant any lands adjoining Salt 
Springs, gold, silver, copper, lead or sulphur mines, know- 
ing them to be such." ^ In drawing deeds he was in- 
structed to reserve "one half of all gold, silver, copper, 
lead and sulphur," to the Proprietors, thus securing them 
against loss in case of accidental violation of the first, not 
very generous, regulation. Grants along navigable rivers 
should always have twice as much depth as river front- 
age; not in itself an unfair provision, but one which the 
settlers, accustomed to choose their lands as they pleased, 
were certain to resent, even as they resented any real re- 
strictions upon their freedom of choice. The price of 
lands was also definitely fixed,^ in a schedule which 
was to run until June i, 1776. 

1 "Minutes of Oxford Meeting of the Proprietors of Transylvania," Sep- 
tember 25, 1775, Durrett MSS. 

2 Among the Durrett MSS. is a statement of the terms upon which the lands 
of the Transylvania Colony can be obtained. It is dated Williamsburg, Virginia, 
September 30, 1775, and is evidently one of the advertising announcements sent 
out by this meeting at Oxford. Collins, II, p. 512, gives a list of the prices. 
It was also voted "that a present of 2,000 acres of land be made to Colonel 
Daniel Boone with the thanks of the Proprietors, for the signal service he had 
rendered to the Company." 



TRANSYLVANIA 51 

Thus the Proprietors made definite and formal the very 
conditions, the mere suspicion of which had already 
driven men like Harrod and Slaughter into open hostility, 
and it should not, therefore, have surprised them that, a 
few months later, their agent complained of "a conspiracy 
not to hold lands on any other terms than those of the first 
year. 

Having thus disposed of the difficult question of land 
grants, the meeting proceeded to consider the more seri- 
ous subject of the hostility of Virginia and North Car- 
olina. Henderson and his fellow Proprietors were too 
intelligent and too experienced in affairs to dream of 
successfully floating so vast an enterprise against such 
opposition, unless they could secure the recognition and 
support of a still higher power, namely, the Continental 
Congress, then sitting at Philadelphia. They, therefore, 
determined to make an effort to secure that support, and 
prepared a formal memorial, requesting "that Transyl- 
vania be added to the number of the United Colonies," 
adding, as a bit of " patriotic fireworks," which it was 
hoped would touch that great Revolutionary Assembly, 
that "having their hearts warmed with the same noble 
spirit that animates the Colonies, and moved with indig- 
nation at the late ministerial and parliamentary usurpa- 
tions, it is the earnest wish of the Proprietors of Transyl- 
vania to be considered by the Colonies as brothers, engaged 
in the same great cause of liberty and mankind." ^ 

James Hogg, one of the Proprietors, was appointed to 
carry this appeal to the Continental Congress, and to ask 

1 Brown's "Political Beginnings of Kentucky," p. 32, quotes a part of the 
petition, and Collins, II, p. 512, a still smaller part. The petition itself is pre- 
served in full in the Durrett MSS. 



52 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

to be seated as the delegate from Transylvania. Hogg took 
up his journey at once, and on October 22, 1775, entered 
the portals of Independence Hall, where sat the fathers 
of the Republic. About six weeks later he sent Colo- 
nel Henderson an account of his interviews ^ with those 
fathers. He reports conversations with Samuel and John 
Adams, who, he said, seemed pleased with the idea, 
but objected that "taking under our protection a body 
of people who have acted in defiance of the King's Proc- 
lamation will be looked on as a confirmation of that in- 
dependent spirit with which we are daily reproached."^ 
Hogg answered this objection by exhibiting the memorial 
which gave strong expression of loyalty to the King. 
"They were pleased with our memorial," he says, "and 
thought it very proper." But looking over the map, they 
discovered that Transylvania comprised a part of the 
original Virginia chartered grant. They then advised 
Mr. Hogg to consult the Virginia delegation on the sub- 
ject, as they were unwilling to take any steps in the matter 
without the latter's consent. 

So Hogg approached Jefferson and Wythe, and ex- 
plained to them the nature of his mission. These also 
examined the map and "observed that our purchase was 
within their charter, and gently hinted that by virtue of 
it they might claim the whole." Jefferson added, how- 
ever, that his advice to Virginia would be to make no use 
of her charter rights in this case, except to prevent any 

1 "Hogg to Henderson," December 2, 1775. Durrett MSS. The above 
account of Hogg's experiences in Philadelphia is based almost wholly upon 
this letter, which has never before been made public. 

2 Here Samuel Adams was evidently "playing to the gallery" as he had, as 
long ago as 1768, decided that the independence of the American Colonies was 
the only course open to them. 



TRANSYLVANIA 53 

arbitrary or oppressive government from being estab- 
lished veithin her chartered boundaries. "But he would 
not consent that v^e should be acknowledged by the Con- 
gress, until it had the approbation of their Constituents 
in Convention, which he thought might be obtained." 

"I was," he writes, "several times with Mr. Dean of 
Connecticut. He says he will send some people to see 
our country; and if their report be favorable, he thinks 
many Connecticut people will join us. This gentleman 
is a scholar and a man of sense and enterprise, and rich, 
and I am apt to believe has some thoughts of heading a 
party of Connecticut adventurers, providing things can 
be made agreeable to him. He is recognized a good man, 
and much esteemed in Congress; but he is an enthusiast 
on liberty and will have nothing to do with us unless he is 
pleased with our form of Government. He is a great ad- 
mirer of the Connecticut Constitution, and was so good as 
to favor me with a long letter on that subject, a copy of 
which is enclosed.^ You would be amazed to see how 
much in earnest all these speculative gentlemen are about 
the plan to be adopted by the Transylvanians. They 
entreat, they pray that we may make it a free Government, 
and beg that no mercenary or ambitious views in the Pro- 
prietors may prevent it. Quit rents, they say, is a mark 
of vassalage, and hope they shall not be established in 
Transylvania. They even threaten us with their opposi- 
tion, if we do not act on liberal principles when we have 
it so much in our power to render ourselves immortal. 
Many of them advised a law against negroes." 

At this point Hogg's letter comes to an end, leaving the 
result of his mission still in doubt, but, from the deposi- 

1 This letter has not been discovered. 



54 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

tion of Patrick Henry, taken several years later,^ we are 
able to see why, after such encouragement, it proved 
a complete failure. The Continental Congress rejected 
the memorial from the Transylvania Company because 
Patrick Henry employed his great talents to prevent its 
recognition. Hogg apparently tried what we sometimes 
call " the modern method " of securing his end. He went 
to Patrick Henry and offered to make over to him certain 
stock in the Transylvania Company. "The deponent 
further says," so runs Henry's deposition, "that William 
Henderson and his partners,^ very soon after their sup- 
posed purchase joined in a letter to this deponent,^ in 
which was contained, as this deponent thinks, a distant 
though plain hint that he, the deponent, might be a part- 
ner with them." Henry also states that numerous other 
messages to the same effect were received "from Messrs. 
Henderson & Co." all of which he refused, with the 
" strongest disapprobation of their whole proceedings, giv- 
ing as a reason that the People of Virginia had a right 
to the back country derived from their Charter and the 
Blood and Treasure they expended on that account." 
The Transylvania Company had overshot the mark 
in seeking thus to conciliate the hero of the Parson's 
Cause. 

In the meantime, their new land regulations were rapidly 
preparing the last chapter of the Company's history in 
the Colony, and soon the discontented came forward to 
test their strength in open conflict with the hated corpora- 

1 Deposition of Patrick Henry, June 4, 1777, "Calendar of Virginia State 
Papers," p. 289. Reproduced in Collins, II, p. 496. 

2 William Henderson for Richard Henderson. 

3 Doubtless a letter with which Hogg had been supplied before leaving his 
colleagues at Oxford. 



TRANSYLVANIA 55 

tion. A petition addressed, "To the Honorable the Con- 
vention of Virginia," ^ was drawn up and signed by eighty- 
four settlers who had entered land in the ofHce of Colonel 
Williams, and had become convinced of the insecurity of 
the titles granted by that office. This document states 
that the petitioners had been lured by a specious show of 
easy terms to take up land and settle within the region 
claimed by the Transylvania Company, under the faith 
that they were receiving "an indefeasible title; " that the 
Company had advanced "the price of the purchase 
money," and had "increased the fees to entry and survey- 
ing to a most exorbitant rate," making it evident that 
they intended "rising in their demands as the settlers in- 
crease, or their insatiable avarice shall dictate." It further 
declares that the petitioners have lately learned, from a 
copy of the treaty of Fort Stanwix, that the purchase of 
Henderson & Company falls within the territory covered 
by that treaty, and is therefore of doubtful validity; that, 
moreover, as there is the greatest reason to presume that 
his Majesty will sooner or later vindicate his title secured 
by that treaty, the petitioners are in imminent danger of 
being " turned out of possession, or obliged to purchase 
their lands and improvements on such terms as the new 
grantee or proprietor (with a new deed from the King) 
might think fit to impose." For these reasons the peti- 
tioners implore, "to be taken under the protection of the 
honorable Convention of the Colony of Virginia, of which 
we cannot help thinking ourselves still a part, and request 
your kind intervention in our behalf, that we may not 
suffer under the rigorous demands and impositions of the 
gentlemen styling themselves Proprietors, who, the better 

1 "Petition and Signers," Durrett MSS. Reprint, Collins, II, pp. 510-511. 



56 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

to effect their oppressive designs, have given them the color 
of a law, enacted by a score of men, artfully picked from 
the few adventurers who went to see the country last sum- 
mer, over-awed by the presence of Mr. Henderson." 

This document did not reach the Virginia Convention 
until the month of March, 1776, and before any definite 
action had been taken concerning it, a new and startling 
phase of the question arose. News of war between Eng- 
land and her American Colonies reached the Indian 
tribes of the Northwest, who, under the encouragements 
offered them by British agents, began again the bar- 
barous warfare which had been so disastrous before the 
great victory of Point Pleasant. The danger from this 
source rendered it imperative that active measures of de- 
fence be at once taken. Before that could well be done, 
however, it was necessary that the question of jurisdiction 
be definitely determined. If the claim of the Transylvania 
Company was to stand, it seemed likely that the settlers 
would have to look out for their own safety; but if Vir- 
ginia should decide to yield to the appeal which had been 
made to her, and "take them under the protection of the 
honorable Convention of the Colony," they might fairly 
expect military aid from her, especially in view of the 
enormous importance of this frontier country to the se- 
curity of Virginia herself. 

It was at this critical moment that George Rogers Clark, 
the future conqueror of the Northwest territory, took 
up his permanent abode among the Kentucky pioneers. 
Clark had visited Kentucky, on a brief tour of inspection, 
during the previous autumn (Sept., 1775), and had been 
placed in command of the irregular militia of the settle- 
ments. He had returned to Virginia, filled with the im- 



TRANSYLVANIA 57 

portance of establishing in Kentucky an extensive system 
of public defence, and with the firm conviction that the 
claims of Henderson & Company ought to be disallov^ed 
by Virginia. His return to Kentucky, in 1776, marks the 
beginning of the end of the Transylvania Company. In 
spite of his youth (he w^as only twenty-four) he was far 
the most dangerous opponent that Henderson & Com- 
pany had in the province. A military leader by nature, 
he had served in Lord Dunmore's war with such con- 
spicuous success that he had been offered a commission in 
the British Army. This honor he had declined, preferring 
to remain free to serve his country in the event of a revolt 
from British tyranny.^ 

Shortly after his arrival, Clark proposed that, in order 
to bring about a more certain connection with Virginia, 
and the more definitely to repudiate the authority of the 
Transylvania Company, a regular representative assem- 
bly should be held at Harrodsburg. His own views he 
expressed freely in advancing this suggestion. Agents, he 
said, should be appointed to urge once more the right of 
the region to be taken under the protection of Virginia, and, 
if this request should be again unheeded, we should "em- 

1 Daniel Trabue tells us that, after the troops had returned from Lord Dun- 
more's war, "there was nothing else talked about scarcely but war. Our church 
parsons and merchants were mostly Scotchmen and English (this refers of 
course to Virginia not Kentucky); I recollect I heard one parson, to wit, Arch- 
ibald McRobert (the name in the MS. is crossed out with ink but is still 
legible) tell my father that the people was deluded by some other preachers, 
they was not only wrong but fools, he further stated there was as many men in 
the city of London as we had in North America. There was meetings called to 
consult about the war there was fast days appointed. Then it was that most of 
the men had hunting shirts and had liberty marked on their hunting shirts and 
bunch tails in their head, and the majority of the people said we will fight for 
our liberty." Daniel Trabue's "Autobiography and Diary." Unpublished 
MS., Durrett collection. 



58 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

ploy the lands of the country as a fund to obtain settlers 
and establish an independent state." ^ 

The proposed assembly convened at Harrodsburg on 
the 6th of June. Clark was not present when the session 
began, and when he arrived, he found that the pressing 
question of the day had already been acted upon, and that 
he himself, with Gabriel John Jones, had been elected a 
delegate to represent the settlements in the Virginia As- 
sembly. Clark knew that such an election would not 
entitle them to seats, but he agreed to visit Williamsburg, 
and present the cause of his fellow pioneers. Provided 
with a formal memorial to the Virginia Assembly,^ he 
started, with Jones, for Virginia and, after a very painful 
journey, upon which, Clark declared, I suffered "more 
torment than I ever experienced before or since," they 
reached the neighborhood of Charlottesville, only to learn 
that the Assembly had adjourned. Jones set off for a visit 
to the settlements on the Holston; but Clark, intent upon 
his mission, pushed on to Hanover County, where he se- 
cured an interview with Patrick Henry, then Governor of 
Virginia. 

After listening to Clark's report of the troubles of the 
frontier colony, and doubtless enjoying his denuncia- 
tions of the Transylvania Company, Governor Henry in- 
troduced him to the executive Council of the State, and 
he at once requested from them five hundred pounds 
of powder for frontier defences. He had determined to 
accomplish the object of his mission in any manner pos- 
sible, and he knew that if he could induce the authorities 

1 Collins, II, p. 134. 

2 This memorial was in the possession of the late Hon. John Mason Brown; 
see Brown's "Political Beginnings of Kentucky," p. 38. 



TRANSYLVANIA 59 

of Virginia to provide for the defence of the frontier set- 
tlements, the announcement of her property rights in them 
would certainly follow, to the destruction of the plans of 
Henderson and his colleagues. 

The Council, however, doubtless also foreseeing these 
consequences, declared that its powers could not be so 
construed as to give it authority to grant such a request. 
But Clark was insistent, and urged his case so effectively 
that, after considerable discussion, the Council announced 
that, as the call appeared urgent, they would assume the 
responsibility of lending five hundred pounds of powder 
to Clark, making him personally responsible for its value, 
in case their assumption of authority should not be upheld 
by the Burgesses. They then presented him with an order 
to the keeper of the public magazine calling for the powder 
desired. 

This was exactly what Clark did not want, as the loan 
of five hundred pounds of powder to George Rogers 
Clark, could in no sense be interpreted as an assumption 
by Virginia, of the responsibility of defending the western 
frontier, and his next act was most characteristic of the 
man. He returned the order with a curt note, declaring 
his intention of repairing at once to Kentucky, and exert- 
ing the resources of the country to the formation of an 
independent State, for, he frankly declared, "a country 
which is not worth defending is not worth claiming."^ 

This threat proved instantly successful. The Council 
recalled Clark to their presence and, on August 23, 1776, 
delivered him another order calling for five hundred 
pounds of gunpowder, which was to be conveyed to Pitts- 
burg by Virginia officials, there " to be safely kept and 

1 This letter is reproduced in English's "Life of George Rogers Clark." 



6o KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

delivered to George Rogers Clark or his order, for the 
use of the said inhabitants of Kentucky," 

With this concession Clark was completely satisfied, for 
he felt that by it Virginia was admitting her obligation to 
defend the pioneers of the West, and that an open decla- 
ration of sovereign rights over the territory must soon 
follow. He accordingly wrote to his friends in Kentucky, 
requesting them to receive the powder at Pittsburg, and 
convey it to the Kentucky stations, while he himself 
awaited the opening of the autumn session of the Virginia 
Assembly, where he hoped to procure a more explicit 
verdict against the claims of Henderson's Company. 

At the time appointed for the meeting, Clark, accompa- 
nied by his colleague, Gabriel John Jones, proceeded to 
Williamsburg and presented his petition to the Assembly,^ 
where again his remarkable personality secured a victory. 
In spite of the vigorous exertions of Henderson and Camp- 
bell in behalf of the Transylvania Company, the Virginia 
Assembly (December 7, 1776) ^ passed an act dividing the 
vast, ill-defined region, hitherto known as Fincastle County, 
into three sections, to be known as Kentucky County, 
Washington County and Montgomery County, Virginia. 
The County of Kentucky, comprising almost the same ter- 
ritory as is contained in the present State of Kentucky, 
was thus recognized as a political unit of the Virginia Com- 
monwealth, and as such was entitled to representation. 

This statute decided the fate of the Transylvania Com- 
pany, as there could not be two Sovereign Proprietors of 



1 They hailed as representatives from "the western part of Fincastle County, 
on the Kentucky river," for want of a better title. Collins, II, p. 6ii. 

2Hening's "Statutes at Large of Virginia," IX, p. 257; Brown's "Political 
Beginnings of Kentucky," p. 39. 



TRANSYLVANIA 6 1 

the soil of Kentucky County. And so passed, a victim to 
its own lust of gain, the last attempt to establish a pro- 
prietary government upon the free soil of the United 
States; and George Rogers Clark, as founder of Ken- 
tucky's first political organization, became the political 
father of the Commonwealth, even as Daniel Boone had 
been the father of her colonization. 



CHAPTER III 

Kentucky's part in the American revolution 

The fate of Henderson's detested corporation having 
been decided, Clark was preparing to return to his home 
in the new county of Kentucky, when he received news 
that, although the precious powder, which had cost him 
such a conflict, had been conveyed to Pittsburg, as the 
Virginia Council had promised, no one had as yet appeared 
to bear it to its destination beyond the mountains. This 
task was by no means either a safe or an easy one, as the 
news of its intended transmission had in some way reached 
the Indians; but Clark and Jones started at once for Pitts- 
burg, determined that, at any cost, the stations should re- 
ceive their ammunition. Securing a small boat and seven 
boatmen, they placed the precious freight aboard, and 
quietly embarked for their dangerous journey down the 
Ohio. They were hotly pursued by Indians who, how- 
ever, were not provided with boats of sufficient size to 
follow by water, and were compelled to make their way 
along the wooded banks, so that by the time Clark reached 
a point near the present site of Maysville, known as the 
Three Islands,^ his pursuers were far behind. Running 
the boat quietly along the shaded bank of one of the is- 
lands, he entered the mouth of Limestone Creek, and 
carefully concealed the powder at different points in the 
thick underbrush which lined the shore.^ He then allowed 

1 Collins, II, pp. 135, 445- 
3 Details given in Butler, 1834 Ed., p. 41. 

62 



KENTUCKY'S PART IN THE REVOLUTION 63 

the empty boat to drift down the river to decoy the enemy, 
while he and his companions proceeded unencumbered 
toward Harrodsburg, from which place he hoped to send 
back a guard to bring in the hidden cargo. 

After a short journey through the forests, the party 
came upon the lonely cabin of John Hinkson, where they 
met land surveyors who told them that the Indians had 
recently become so numerous in that district, as to cause 
the abandonment of most of the smaller stations. They 
also reported that Colonel John Todd was in the im- 
mediate neighborhood with a party sufficiently large, if 
added to Clark's own number, to convey the hidden pow- 
der in safety to Harrodsburg. Clark, therefore, left Jones 
and five of the boatmen, with directions to secure the aid 
of Todd and his party, while he himself, in company with 
the other two men, pushed on to McClelland's Fort. 

Here he found a condition bordering on despair. The 
station had been so weakened by desertions, since the re- 
newal of the Indian attacks in the region, that the garri- 
son was scarcely sufficient to maintain the post, and no 
men could be spared, for even so important a purpose as 
that of securing the much needed ammunition. Clark, 
therefore, hurried on to Harrodsburg, piloted by Simon 
Kenton. Here a guard of sufficient strength was supplied 
him, and he hastened back to rejoin his companions at 
Hinkson's; but arrived too late to prevent disaster. 

Shortly after Clark's departure. Colonel Todd had ar- 
rived with some half-dozen men, and, upon learning of the 
hidden stores, had persuaded Jones to lead him to the place 
where they had been deposited. It was a foolishly daring 
attempt, as events soon proved; for, as Todd and his little 
company of ten approached the banks of Limestone Creek, 



64 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

(Christmas Day, 1776), they were attacked by a large band 
of savages under the famous Mingo Chief, Pluggy, who 
had been following Clark's trail, having discovered that his 
boat had been abandoned. Jones and William Graydon 
were killed, and two more of the party captured, while 
Todd with his five remaining men escaped to McClelland's 
Station where Clark and Kenton found them. Their ar- 
rival alone prevented a still more serious disaster, as 
Pluggy and his warriors knew that the station was in no 
condition to resist a determined attack, and, on January i, 
1777, moved forward for its destruction. Meeting an 
unexpected resistance, in which their chief was killed, 
they soon withdrew, leaving McClelland and two of his 
garrison dead on the field of battle.^ Their retirement 
gave the opportunity so ardently prayed for, and Clark 
hastened to secure the precious powder, and convey it to 
Harrodsburg, while the startled inhabitants of McClel- 
land's Station sought the greater security of the stockaded 
forts, or hastily retraced their steps across the mountains 
to their old homes in the "Settlements."^ 

The news of Clark's return afi^orded great satisfaction 
to the five or six hundred pioneers, huddled together in the 
stockaded forts of Kentucky,^ and the powder, which was 
shortly distributed among the various stations, was a gift 
of priceless value, which, as they well understood, could 
never have reached them, but for the heroism and self- 
sacrifice of their new military leader. They rejoiced too 

1 Butler, p. 42. 

2 Kenton and the majority of the inhabitants of McClelland's took up their 
abode at Harrodsburg. Collins, II, p. 445. 

3Winsor ("Westward Movement," p. in) places the population of the 
Kentucky forts at the opening of 1777 as about six hundred, only one-half of 
whom were "arms-bearing." 



KENTUCKY'S PART IN THE REVOLUTION 65 

at his victory over Henderson, by which it had been made 
possible for them to secure indefeasible titles to their lands, 
and at the thought that they w^ere forever rid of quit rents, 
and were no longer subject to a band of lordly Proprietors.^ 
But their chief joy arose from the fact that they again saw 
among them the heroic figure of the man whom they had 
already begun to consider a leader capable of providing 
some effective means of defence against their savage ene- 
mies,^ now aided and abetted by the British. 

Their own methods, though heroic and picturesque to a 
degree, had not been very effective. Kentucky warfare, 
before the appearance of Clark, had been largely a matter 
of individual prowess, each pioneer selecting his own 
ground, carefully calculating the time and manner of the 
attack, and closing the campaign whenever he pleased. He 
would sharpen his hunting knife, shoulder his long rifle, 
fill his pockets with parched corn, as a convenient substi- 
tute for bread, and start for the Indian country, without 
the flourish of trumpets, or the inspiring beating of the 
drum. On arriving upon the enemies' soil he would crouch 
like a panther, stealthily approach the savage tents, and 
patiently await his chance of shooting an Indian, or of 
capturing a horse; then he would return to the planting of 
his crops, until exasperated to the point of making another 
attack. Even the more ambitious enterprises, styled "ex- 
peditions," had been merely the combination of a number 

1 Instead of a government of Proprietors they soon found themselves living 
under a regular, organized, county government, which was set up early in 1777. 
The details of the organization are given in full in Marshall, I, pp. 47-48. 
(See Collins, II, p. 606.) Collins, II, 475, says that the first court was held at 
Harrodsburg, January 16, 1781, evidently an error. 

2 Clark took regular military charge of the Kentucky settlements, early in 
the Spring (1777). Collins, II, p. 445. 

Kentucky — 5 



66 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

of such private ventures, lacking both the formaUty and 
the dignity of real military expeditions. They were daring 
attempts to fight the savages according to their own mili- 
tary code, and were the result of necessity, rather than of 
deliberate choice. This method had answered the pur- 
pose as long as the savages had adhered to their practice 
of individual attacks, but, as the year 1776 drew to a close, 
it became evident that the American Revolution had in- 
troduced serious changes into savage warfare. The Indi- 
ans were organized as they had never been organized be- 
fore, and, although their British allies never succeeded in 
imposing real military discipline upon them, the raid of 
1777 promised to be far more difficult to resist, than 
any which the pioneers had, as yet, been called upon 
to meet. 

Clark's return was, therefore, timely, and his presence 
most encouraging to the little frontier stations over whose 
military fortunes he had chosen to preside. As he talked 
to the settlers, and gathered details of their personal en- 
counters and hairbreadth escapes, during his long ab- 
sence in Virginia, he became more and more convinced 
that only by a campaign into the enemies' country could 
the period of border massacre be brought to a close. He 
suspected that the murderous bands which, from time to 
time appeared in Kentucky, were in British pay, and were 
designed to draw off troops from Washington's main army.^ 
That this was true, the full history of the matter has since 
shown. Colonel Henry Hamilton, whom the shrewd 
Carleton, Governor General of Canada, had put in charge 

1 Winsor's "Westward Movement," pp. iii, 127. At a glance Clark had 
discovered what had so long escaped the watchful eyes of Virginia's great states- 
men, that the true source of the Indian devastations was the British posts, De- 
troit, Vincennes and Kaskaskia. Butler, 1834 Ed., p. 45. 



KENTUCKY'S PART IN THE REVOLUTION 67 

of the post of Detroit/ had secured the Shawnees and 
Wyandots as alHes, and, in anticipation of orders which 
he had asked of Germain, was keeping them happy, and 
was seeking to attract other savage tribes, by sending them 
in raids against the American frontiers.^ His own state- 
ment of the following July shows that, up to that date, 
he had organized and dispatched no less than fifteen 
parties upon this fiendish mission.'* 

As a safeguard against surprises, upon which the In- 
dians, still unsupplied with cannon, largely depended when 
attacking stockaded forts, Clark arranged for the appoint- 
ment of six spies, pledging the faith of Virginia for the 
payment of their meager wages. They were detailed in 
turn, two each week, to range up and down the Ohio and 
about the deserted stations, and they added much to the 
security of the District, until the days of the great inva- 
sions which came with the advance of that memorable 
Spring (1777). 

Toward the end of February, Hamilton, sitting com- 
fortably in his headquarters at Detroit, decided that the 
time had arrived for crushing at one blow the three little 
frontier stations of Boonesborough, Harrodsburg, and 
Logan's Fort. Such a stroke, he plainly saw, would put 
an end to Kentucky colonization, make Virginia again a 

1 Winsor's "Westward Movement," p. 87. Hamilton had reached his post 
in November, 1775. Ibid., p. 90. 

2 The expected orders (dated March 26, 1777), were in accord with Hamil- 
ton's suggestions, and the course which he was already following. 

3 Few of the British officers brought themselves so much under criticism for 
inciting savage barbarities as Governor Hamilton. He sang the war songs with 
the zest of a second Frontenac, and made presents to war parties which returned 
with white scalps; but it would be difficult to prove that he actually offered re- 
wards as an inducement to the Indians to take scalps. See Winsor's "West- 
ward Movement," p. 127. 



68 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

frontier accessible to Indian raids, and conciliate the sav- 
ages, by giving them back their beloved hunting ground 
south of the Ohio; to say nothing of the advantage of 
holding in the West, for frontier defence, the experienced 
troops which Morgan, the American Indian agent for the 
middle department, was planning to send from Fort Pitt 
and Fort Randolph, to reinforce Washington's army in 
the East.^ The plans were carefully made, and only by a 
lucky chance was warning given to the little garrison at 
Harrodsburg, which had been singled out as the first vic- 
tim. On March 5, 1777,^ James Ray and several com- 
panions, while surveying near Harrodsburg, were suddenly 
attacked by a band of forty-seven Indians, commanded by 
the Chief, Blackfish.^ Ray alone escaped, making such 
use of his legs as astonished even the savage leaders, and, 
having gained the fort, gave the alarm. Preparations were 
hastily made for defence; a militia was organized, am- 
munition brought out, and w^ater and provisions secured. 
Two days later ^ the attack was begun, in characteristic 
Indian fashion, with a decoy, designed to lure the pioneers 
outside the protection of their strong palisade. A cabin, 
standing a little apart from the fort, was fired by the sav- 
ages, and the unsuspecting settlers rushed out to save their 
property. Instantly the forest was alive with painted war- 
riors, intent upon cutting off the retreat to the fort. The 

1 The specific circumstance, as Winsor points out, which induced Hamil- 
ton to attempt this stroke at that particular moment, was the news that "Mor- 
gan, who was now commanding at Fort Pitt, had represented to headquarters 
in January, 1777, that if militia were drafted to take the place of the garrisons 
at Forts Pitt and Randolph, the regular companies doing duty there could be 
sent to reinforce the Eastern Army." Winsor's "Westward Movement," p. in. 

2 Butler, p. 42; Collins, II, p. 611, puts Ray's escape a few days earlier. 

3 Smith, p. 84. 

* Marshall, I, p. 48. 



KENTUCKY'S PART IN THE REVOLUTION 69 

whites scattered, each man selecting a tree to serve as a 
shield, and, retreating toward the fort, kept up a deadly fire 
with the long rifle, which the pioneer always carried with 
him. As they reached the entrance, the gates were opened, 
and a quick rush carried them into a position of safety 
behind the protecting log walls. 

The failure of their plans discouraged the savages, who 
had no mind to attempt the siege of so strong a fort, 
while other stations remained which might possibly be 
taken by surprise. They accordingly vanished as noise- 
lessly as they had come, and, on April 15th, appeared be- 
fore the walls of Boonesborough, a hundred strong,^ and 
began a fierce and persistent attack. The little garrison, 
however, though numbering barely twenty-two guns, re- 
ceived the assault with such coolness, and with such per- 
fection of aim, that, after two days of battle, the savages 
retired, taking their dead and wounded with them. 

The next attempt (May 20th) was upon Logan's Fort, 
and fell with terrible and deadly suddenness. The women 
were milking the cows, and the men standing guard, as 
was customary in those troubled days, when the attack 
came. One man was killed and two wounded before 
the startled pioneers succeeded in reentering the fort, 
and when at last the great gates had been secured, the 
little garrison noticed with horror that one of their wounded 
had been left outside. They watched him raise himself 
from the ground with a violent exertion, stagger a few 
paces toward the gate, and fall back gasping. He was 
in full view of the fort, and also in short range of the sav- 
ages, who deliberately held their fire, in the hope that an 
attempt at rescue would offer them more desirable targets. 

1 Winsor's "Westward Movement," p. iii. 



70 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

With the garrison it was a conflict between sympathy and 
duty. The number of effective men in the fort had already 
been reduced from fifteen to twelve, and each additional 
loss would bring the women and children nearer to the 
-horrors of capture. At length, however, Colonel Benjamin 
Logan announced his intention of attempting the hazard- 
ous rescue, and called for volunteers to assist him. From 
such a venture even those hardened warriors of the fron- 
tier held back in horror. It was folly. It meant certain 
and instant death. Shame finally induced John Martin to 
offer his services. The gate was cautiously opened and the 
two men sprang forward; but Martin's courage forsook 
him, and he darted back to the gate which instantly opened 
to receive him. Logan, undaunted, raised the wounded 
man to his broad shoulders, and amid a shower of bullets 
from the savages, and a chorus of cheers from the garrison, 
bore him to safety behind the walls of the fort.^ 

And now began the horrors of one of the closest and 
most determined sieges know to frontier history, where no 
man could foresee the expedients by which the crafty sava- 
ges would seek to surprise them. At times it was the bold, 
persistent attack; at times the effort to lure the garrison to 
its destruction, by a pretended retreat. But, in general, 
as was their custom when besieging a strong fort defended 
by a palisade, the Indians aimed to cut off the supplies both 
of food and water, and, by keeping a close watch, day and 
night, to prevent any one from passing out or in.^ By 
these latter means, they held Logan's Fort for weeks, but 



1 Marshall, I, pp. 50, 51. 

2 Marshall, himself contemporary with the pioneer age in Kentucky, gives 
a detailed description of how the Indians ordinarily conducted a siege. See 
Vol. I, pp. 43, 44. 



KENTUCKY'S PART IN THE REVOLUTION 71 

at last, the long and heroic defence was rewarded. In 
August, Colonel Bowman ^ entered Kentucky County at 
the head of one hundred men, and directed his course to 
the almost desperate station. 

The savages raised the siege, as he drew near, but made 
their farewell in a most effective manner. They prepared 
an ambuscade for Colonel Bowman's advanced guard, 
which ventured to approach at some distance ahead of 
the main body, and, having killed several of them, selected 
one, upon whose dead body they placed copies of a proc- 
lamation, signed by Colonel Henry Hamilton,^ and offer- 
ing protection to such Americans as would swear allegi- 
ance to George III, while threatening the direst vengeance 
against all who should refuse the mercy thus generously 
offered. This document, a presumptive proof of Hamil- 
ton's connection with the late siege, was discovered by 
the fellow soldiers of the dead man and given to Logan, 
who carefully concealed it, fearing that it might prove too 
tempting an offer to his men, worn out as they were by 
anxiety, long confinement and privation. 

These various attacks, although signally failing to ac- 
complish the chief purpose for which Hamilton had de- 
signed them, checked the process of western settlement. 
Even the few unfortified stations which had weathered 
the storms of 1776, had fallen before these later invasions, 
and, by January, 1778, Kentucky County was deserted, 

1 Winsor's "Westward Movement," p. iii, says August. Boone's "Auto- 
biography" says the 25th of July. Cf. Hartley's "Boone." Marshall, I, p. 53, 
says September. 

2 Marshall assigns the proclamation to Carleton himself, see Vol. I, p. 53, 
but we know that, some months before, Carleton had received instructions 
from England, which relieved him of all responsibility for the war, in the regions 
about the upper lakes, placing the military affairs of that region entirely in the 
hands of Hamilton. 



72 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

save for the three gallant little forts, whose combined garri- 
sons, exclusive of the occasional bands of militia sent out 
by Virginia, numbered only one hundred guns, and whose 
total population, men, women, and children, did not exceed 
two hundred souls. ^ 

These events confirmed Clark in the opinion that safety 
for the Kentucky settlements could only be secured by 
the reduction of the British forts in the Northwest. 
But before he could hope to accomplish this, he saw 
that he must gain an accurate knowledge of the coun- 
try where these hostile posts were situated, and that he 
must secure the financial and military aid of Virginia, 
which, as the parent colony, ought, he felt, to be willing 
to bear the chief burden of such an enterprise. He there- 
fore sent out, during the summer, two spies with instruc- 
tions to make a thorough investigation of the Illinois 
country,^ and to report to him as soon as possible. To- 
ward autumn they returned ^ with tidings which, though 
fully confirming Clark's suspicions that the British were 
instigating the Indian attacks, encouraged him in the be- 
lief that the Northwestern posts could be taken without 
the aid of a very large body of troops. The French in- 
habitants of the Illinois country, they represented as dis- 
posed to be friendly toward the American cause, very few 
of them having taken part in the barbarous raids, directed 
from Hamilton's station in Detroit. They declared that 
this kindly attitude had persisted, although the British had 
endeavored, by every kind of misrepresentation, to preju- 
dice them against the Virginians and Kentuckians, whom 

1 Butler, p. 95. 

2 Butler, p. 46, mentions the names. 

3 Winsor's "Westward Movement," p. 117, says on June 22d, but Collins, 
I, p. 19, says they were still in Illinois on July 25th, 



KENTUCKY'S PART IN THE REVOLUTION JS 

they had represented as far more cruel and barbarous than 
even the savages themselves. 

Of such people Clark saw that it would not be difficult to 
make American allies, if only they could be rescued from 
the dominating influence of British soldiers. Keeping his 
intentions entirely secret, he departed for Williamsburg 
on October the first, and about two months later, ex- 
plained his views in detail to the Governor of Virginia, 
Patrick Henry, who, knowing the military skill and fore- 
sight of the young frontiersman, gave him careful atten- 
tion. Clark's plan had grown since his last appearance, 
demanding simply five hundred pounds of powder for 
frontier defence. Now he asked for men and money, to 
fit out an extensive military expedition, and proposed to 
perform a deed which appeared almost impossible. 

"At first," says Clark, in speaking, in his memoirs, of 
this important conference, "he seemed to be fond of it, 
but to detach a party at so great distance, although the 
service performed might be of great utility, appeared 
daring and hazardous, as nothing but secrecy could give 
success to the enterprise. To lay the matter before the 
Assembly, then sitting, would be dangerous, as it would 
soon be known throughout the frontiers, and probably the 
first prisoner taken by the Indians would give the alarm, 
which would end in the certain destruction of the party." 

Henry, however, called together Thomas Jefferson, 
George Wythe and George Mason, and requested Clark 
to explain his plans to them. These men considered the 
matter with minute care for several weeks, discussing it 
from every conceivable standpoint, and at length (on Jan- 
uary 2, 1778), communicated a favorable decision to the 
Virginia Council, urging that all steps, necessary to the 



74 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

execution of Clark's plans, be taken "with as little delay 
and as much secrecy as possible." 

On the same day Clark received two sets of instructions 
from the Council. The first, intended as a blind for the 
public, reads as follows: 

"Lieut. Col. Geo. Rogers Clark: 

"You are to proceed without loss of time to enlist seven 
companies of men, officered in the usual manner, to act 
as militia under your orders. They are to proceed to 
Kentucky and there to obey such orders and directions as 
you shall give them, for three months after their arrival at 
that place; but to receive pay, etc., in case they remain on 
duty a longer time. 

"You are empowered to raise these men in any county 
in the Commonwealth, and the County Lieutenants, re- 
spectively, are requested to give you all possible assistance 
in that business. 

"Given under my hand at WiUiamsburg, Jan. 2, 1778. 

" P. Henry." ^ 

The private instructions were contained in the following 
letter: 

"In Council, Wmburg., Jan. 2, 1778. 
"Col. Geo. Rogers Clark: 

"Sir: — You are to proceed with all convenient speed 
to raise seven companies of soldiers to consist of fifty 
men each, officered in the usual manner, and armed most 
properly for the enterprise, and with this force attack the 
British post at Kaskasky. 

" It is conjectured that there are many pieces of cannon, 
and military stores to considerable amount at that place, 

1 Pirtle's "Campaign in the Illinois," p. 95. 



KENTUCKY'S PART IN THE REVOLUTION 75 

the taking and preservation of which would be a valuable 
acquisition to the State. If you are so fortunate, there- 
fore, as to succeed in your Expedition you will take every 
possible measure to secure the artillery and stores and 
whatever may advantage the State. 

"For the transportation of the troops, provisions, etc., 
down the Ohio you are to apply to the commanding officer 
at Fort Pitt, for Boats, etc. During the whole transaction 
you are to take especial care to keep the true destination 
of your Force secret. Its success depends upon this. . . . 

"It is earnestly desired that you show humanity to such 
British subjects, and other persons, as fall in your hands. 
If the white Inhabitants of that post and the neighborhood 
will give undoubted evidence of their attachment to this 
State (for it is certain they live within its Hmits) by taking 
the test prescribed by Law and by every way and means 
in their power, let them be treated as fellow citizens, and 
their persons and property duly secured. Assistance and 
protection against all enemies whatever shall be afforded 
them, and the Commonwealth of Va. is pledged to ac- 
complish it. But if the people will not accede to these 
reasonable demands, they must feel the miseries of war 
under the direction of that Humanity that has hitherto 
distinguished Americans, and which it is expected you will 
ever consider as the Rule of your conduct and from which 
you are in no Instance to depart. 

"The corps you are to command are to receive the pay 
and allowance of militia, and to act under the Laws and 
regulations of this State, now in force, as militia. The 
inhabitants of the Post will be informed by you, that in 
case they accede to the offer of becoming citizens of this 
Commonwealth, a proper garrison will be maintained 



76 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

among them and every attention bestowed to render their 
commerce beneficial, the fairest prospects being opened 
to the dominions of both France and Spain. 

"It is in contemplation to establish a post near the 
mouth of the Ohio. Cannon will be wanted to fortify it. 
Part of those at Kaskasky will be easily brought thither 
or otherwise secured as circumstances will make neces- 
sary. . . .^ Wishing you success, I am 

"Sir 

" Your hbl. sr^ 
"P. Henry." 2 
The next day Clark received from the three distinguished 
statesmen, Wythe, Mason and Jefferson, a letter authoriz- 
ing him to use, at the proper time, certain inducements as 
a means of quickly enlisting the necessary troops for the 
expedition. It reads thus: 

"WilHamsburg, Jan. 3, 1778. 

"Sir: 

" As some Indian tribes to the westward of the Missis- 
sippi have lately, without provocation, massacred many of 
the Inhabitants of the Frontiers of this Commonwealth in 
the most cruel and barbarous manner, and it is intended to 
revenge the Injury and punish the Aggressors by carrying 
the war into their own country, we congratulate you upon 
your appointment to conduct so important an enterprise 
in which we most heartily wish you success, and we have 
no doubt but some further reward in lands in the country 
will be given to volunteers who shall engage in this serv- 
ice, in addition to the usual pay, if they are so fortunate 

1 See " Annals of Kentucky," Collins, I, p. i8. 

2 English, "Life of George Rogers Clark," I, p. 96. Pirtle's "Campaign in 
the Illinois," pp. 96-97, transcribes the document. 



KENTUCKY'S PART IN THE REVOLUTION 'J^ 

as to succeed. We think it just and reasonable that each 
volunteer entering as a common soldier in this expedition 
should be allowed three hundred acres of land and the 
officers in the usual proportion, out of the lands which 
may be conquered in the country not in the possession of 
the said Indians, so as not to interfere with the claims of 
any friendly Indians or of any people willing to become 
subjects of this Commonwealth, and for this we think you 
may safely confide in the justice and Generosity of the 
Va. Assembly. 
"We are Sir 

"Your most Hble. Serv*^ 

"G.Wythe. 

"G. Mason. 

"Th. Jefferson. 
"To George Rogers Clark, Esq." 

Armed with such complete authority, and supported 
by the pledge of men so influential, not only in Virginia, 
but throughout the entire country, Clark at once set about 
his plans for enlistment, and his preparations for depar- 
ture, doing all as secretly as possible, according to his in- 
structions. During the next four months his tremendous 
energies were fully occupied in this work, for the raising 
and equipping of even a small body of troops, in those 
anxious times, was no easy task. 

During this same winter (February, 1778), Daniel 
Boone, accompanied by thirty men, was encamped at the 
Blue Licks, on the Licking River, making salt for his 
settlement. Having wandered some distance from camp, 
with the intention of securing a supply of game, he came 
upon a band of one hundred and two Indians bound for 



78 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

an attack upon Boonesborough, and was made prisoner. 
"They . . . brought me on the 8th day," says Boone,^ 
"to the Licks, where twenty-seven of my party were, 
three of them having previously returned home with the 
salt. I, knowing it was impossible for them to escape, 
capitulated with the enemy, and, at a distance, in their 
view, gave notice to my men of their situation, with orders 
not to resist, but surrender themselves captives." 

Boone's object in making this surrender of his compan- 
ions was to prevent the meditated attack upon the fort, 
which he knew to be in no very good condition for defence, 
for he felt certain that the Indians, upon finding themselves 
in possession of so many prisoners, would hasten home 
to receive their reward from the British, and to enjoy a 
season of celebration. And so indeed it happened. "The 
generous usage," continues Boone's Autobiography, "the 
Indians had promised before my capitulation, was after- 
ward fully complied with, and we proceeded with them as 
prisoners to Old Chilicothe, the principal Indian Town on 
Little Miami where we arrived ... on the i8th day of 
February. . . . On the loth day of March following, I 
and ten of my men were conducted by forty Indians to 
Detroit, . . . and were treated by Governor Hamilton, 
the British Commander at that post, with great human- 
ity." 

Here Boone's companions were handed over to the 
British allies, in exchange for the customary reward; but 
no gold could tempt his savage captors to part with the 
hero himself, "although," says Boone, with a touch of 

1 "Autobiography." Marshall, I, p. 55, gives February 7th as the date of 
Boone's capture, and this is confirmed by Boone's "Autobiography" (Reprinted 
in Hartley's "Boone," Appendix). 



KENTUCKY'S PART IN THE REVOLUTION 79 

complacency, "the Governor offered them one hundred 
pounds Sterling for me, on purpose to give me a parole 
to go home. Several English gentlemen," he adds, with 
that fine independence so characteristic of the frontier, 
"... generously offered a friendly supply for my wants, 
which I refused, with many thanks for their kindness — 
adding, that I never expected it would be in my power 
to recompense such unmerited generosity." 

The Indians, having thus disposed of their less illus- 
trious captives, took Boone back to Old Chillicothe where, 
says Boone, "I was adopted, according to their custom, 
into a family where I became a son, and had a great share 
in the affection of my new parents, brothers, sisters, 
and friends." 

This ceremony of adoption, although considered the 
greatest possible compliment by the Indians, was a very 
painful and humiliating process. The hair was pulled 
out until the head was entirely bald, with the exception 
of the "scalp lock," which was left long, and adorned 
with ribbons and feathers. The victim was then handed 
over to women who led him into the river and scrubbed 
him thoroughly, to "take out all his white blood." He 
was next conducted to the council of braves, where the 
chief made a formal address intended to impress upon 
him the greatness of the honor thus thrust upon him, and 
finally, painted and decorated in the most elaborate style, 
he was conducted with great pomp, to a feast given in 
honor of the new son of the tribe. ^ 

Boone accepted these courtesies with apparent satis- 
faction, knowing that his chance of escape would be much 
greater if he could persuade the Indians that he was per- 

1 Hartley's "Boone," p. 131. 



8o KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

fectly contented to remain one of them. "I was exceed- 
ingly familiar and friendly with them," he says/ " always 
appearing as cheerful and satisfied as possible, and they 
put great confidence in me. ... I was careful not to ex- 
ceed many of them in shooting; for no people are more 
envious than they in this sport." But all the time he was 
dividing into halves the bullets allowed him, and using 
light charges of powder, preparing for the day when he 
should deem it advisable to make good his escape.^ 
Watching for the first signs of a new expedition against 
the Kentucky stations, and ready instantly to carry the 
alarm, he bided his time, until one day, toward the middle 
of June, upon his return from the salt springs on the 
Scioto, he was alarmed to see four hundred and fifty In- 
dians, painted and armed, ready for a march against 
Boonesborough. The time for escape had at last arrived, 
and, on the i6th of June, before sunrise, he slipped quietly 
away, arriving at Boonesborough on the 20th, after a 
journey of one hundred and sixty miles, during which he 
had eaten but one meal.^ 

His reception at the hands of some of his fellow pioneers 
was far from cordial. Stephen Hancock, one of the men 
whom Boone had surrendered at Blue Licks, had returned 
to Boonesborough and had reported "that the Indians in 
a great army was a coming to take boonsbourrough that 
Colonel Daniel Boone was at Detroyt and had agreed 
with the british officers that he would come with the In- 
dians and that their fort should be given up and that the 

1 "Autobiography." 

2 Bogart's "Boone," p. 192. 

3 Filson's "Kentucke." During his absence Boone's family had returned 
to North Carolina, supposing him to be dead. (Collins, II, p. 59.) Robert B. 
McAfee's " Journal." 



KENTUCKY'S PART IN THE REVOLUTION 8i 

people should be taken to Detroyt and live under the juris- 
diction of his gracious Majesty King George III." 

In answer to these accusations Boone declared that, "he 
was a Discieving the British officers and Indians and he 
was now come to help his own people fight and they 
must make what preparation they could, but the Indians 
would certainly be their in a few days. . . ." ^ 

On August 8, 1778,^ the savage army approached the 
fort, four hundred painted warriors, and eleven Frenchmen, 
commanded by the Canadian Frenchman, Captain Du- 
quesne, and the great chief, Blackfish, and proudly bear- 
ing aloft the colors of His Britannic Majesty.^ A parley 
ensued, Duquesne demanding the surrender of the fort in 
the name of King George III, and Boone responding with a 
request for two days for consideration, which was promptly 
granted. Having made the most of this brief period of 
respite to strengthen the defences and bring the cattle 
within the walls of the fort, Boone delivered his reply, 
astonishingly defiant in view of the vast disparity of the 
contending forces.^ 

"We laugh at your formidable preparations; but thank 

1 Daniel Trabue's "Autobiography and Diary," Durrett MSS. 

2 Butler, p. 97, following Boone's "Autobiography," places this attack on 
August 8th, while Collins (Vol. II, p. 19) says that it began on September 7th. 
The " Journal of Robert McAfee," also gives August 8th. 

3 Marshall, I, p. 59. Boone, in his "Autobiography" says the British and 
French colors were both flying over the Indian army, certainly a strange 
combination in view of the recent Franco-American Alliance, news of which 
had reached Clark at Louisville before the middle of the previous June. 

* With the additions of the last few months the garrison was less than fifty 
men (Marshall, I, p. 60), but this does not include the aid sent from Harrods- 
burg and Logan's Fort just before the arrival of the savage army. General 
Robert B. McAfee (Durrett MSS.) says there were only twenty-nine men in the 
station during the siege; but this is an evident error. McAfee's description of 
the conference and the siege is graphic and interesting, though differing con- 
siderably from those of Boone and Daniel Trabue. 
Kentucky — 6 



82 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

you for giving us notice and time to provide for our de- 
fense. Your efforts will not prevail; for our gates shall 
forever deny you admittance:" in which defiance, in spite 
of the obtrusive formalism given it by Filson, the rhetori- 
cian, we catch the ring of real pioneer days. 

Duquesne, however, hesitated to attack, unable to grasp 
the idea that this garrison of seventy-five men, meant to 
resist his savage four hundred and twelve. His hesita- 
tion Boone attributed to cowardice. "Whether this an- 
swer," he says, " affected their courage or not I can not 
tell; but, contrary to our expectations, they formed a 
scheme to deceive us, declaring it was their orders, from 
Governor Hamilton, to take us captives, and not to destroy 
us; but if nine of us would come out and treat with them, 
they would immediately withdraw their forces from our 
walls, and return home peaceably." 

Although suspecting treachery, Boone agreed to treat; 
and Daniel Trabue, a prominent pioneer of Logan's Fort, 
has left us the following account of the conference, and of 
the siege which followed.^ 

" Previously to their going out. Col. Calloway ^ told the 
people in the fort they must be Redy with their guns if the 
Indians use any violence to fire on them and he also told 
them for the women to put on hats and hunting shirts and 
appear as men and get upon the top of the walls and their 
might appear as a great many men, and the women did 

1 The account given in Boone's "Autobiography" is well known: but Tra- 
bue's account has not before been published. A detailed account of the Con- 
ference is also given in a document entitled "The Indian Attack upon Boones- 
borough in 1778," Durrett MSS., unpublished. See also McClung's "Stories of 
Western Adventure," p. 56. 

2 Col. Richard Calloway had strongly opposed the Conference, but had been 
overruled. 



KENTUCKY'S PART IN THE REVOLUTION 83 

so and the men in the fort did also get on the walls and 
cabins and showd to good advantage their was about 
75 white men in the fort and about 1000 indians around 
the fort ^ about 30 of the Indian Chiefs came up in 
about fifty yards of the Fort Col. Boon with them & our 
officers about 15 ^ went to them and they had a long talk 
and the Indians made or pretended to make a firm Peace 
with the white people and said we must shake hands 
for friendship which the white people agreed to do. So 
they shook hands the Indians then said shake hands 
again and so they did now the Indians sayed two Indians 
must shake hands with one white man to make a Double 
or sure peace at this time the Indians had hold of the 
white men's hands and held them. Col. Calloway ob- 
jected to this but the other Indians laid hold or tryed to 
lay hold of the other hand but Col. Calloway was the first 
that jerked away from them but the Indians seized the 
men two Indians holt of one man or it was mostly the case 
and did their best to hold them but while the man and 
Indians was a scuffling the men from the Fort agreeable 
to Col. Calloway's order fired on them they had a dread- 
ful skufi^el but our men all got in the fort safe and the 
fire continued on both sides after that Col. Calloway had 
made a wooden cannon and took wagon tyre and wrapt it 
and the Indians had agreeable assembled together at a dis- 
tance Calloway loaded his cannon and put in 20 or 30 
ounce balls and fired at the Indians it made a large re- 
port equal to a cannon the Indians squandered from that 

1 A not unnatural exaggeration of the numbers. 

2 General Robt. B. McAfee says that only " Boone and five or six of his men 
went out" (Durrett MSS.), while Boone, in his "Autobiography" (Reprint 
Hartley's " Boone," Appendix) gives the clear impression that nine men went 
to the Conference. 



84 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

place much frightened and it was thought several killed 
or wounded this cannon was fired the second time and 
bursted the last time it, was fired at a group of Indians at 
a distance and it made them skamper perdidiously whether 
they was hit with the bullits or whether it was the big loud 
Report it was uncertain but one thing is a fact they never 
was seen in gropes in sight after that time the Indians 
would sometimes hollow aloud to our men and curse them 
and said why dont you shoot your big gun again our men 
did answer them get many of you together and we will shoot 
it but it is not worth while to shoot at one Indian when he 
is running or Dodging this fort was close on the bank of 
the Kentucky River and it was discovered from the fort 
that there was an old cedar stick or pole that come up 
out of the Camp perpendicular and it was observed to 
shake; our men knew that the indians was digging a pass- 
way this was a project of a Canadian frenchman as was 
thought . . . Col. Calloway immediately had our men 
at Diging a ditch opposite the Indian ditch. Capt. Holder 
a large strong man took big stones and cast them from 
the fort over the Camp expecting they might fall on some 
of the Indians one of the women of the fort said Dont 
do so Capt. it might hurt some of the Indians and they 
will be mad and have revenge for the same and the In- 
dians and our men did almost meet under the fort a 
Digging they could hear one another a digging and when 
the Indians heard that they quit supposing our people 
might or would put their big gun their, the Siege contin- 
ued for 10 days & nights our men received but little dam- 
age from the Indians fire but it was thought there was 
several Indians Killed." 

It was August the twentieth when Duquesne raised the 



KENTUCKY'S PART IN THE REVOLUTION 85 

siege and departed,^ taking his dead and wounded with 
him, and the men who had come in from the neighboring 
forts to aid in the defence, at once hastened back to their 
own stations, fearful lest the force of the savage army 
should be turned against them. 

Thus ended the last serious attempt to capture the fort 
at Boonesborough, and to those of us who to-day read the 
quaint fragments of its history it is quite clear that Boone 
was its hero and patriot throughout. 

While Boone had been playing his part in Old Chilli- 
cothe, posing as the son of a savage tribe, and watching 
his brother red men for the first sign of a renewed invasion 
of Kentucky, George Rogers Clark was preparing to march 
with the little army, which he had succeeded in raising for 
his proposed campaign, against the Northwestern posts. 
He had enlisted three companies, one hundred and fifty 
men in all, and early in May, 1778, reached the mouth of 
the Kanawha in the course of his journey down the Ohio. 
Here he was joined by additional volunteers, and a few 
more immigrants were added to the already considerable 
band who had taken advantage of the expedition to enter 
the wilderness under convoy. As the little flotilla pro- 
ceeded slowly down the river, some of these latter were 
landed at various points; but when Clark reached the 
Falls, on May the twenty-seventh,^ about eighty of them 

1 Marshall, I, p. 62. Robert B. McAfee (Reprint of Journal, " Smith," 
p. loi) adds "after the siege, the people picked up near the fort walls, one 
hundred and twenty-five pounds of leaden bullets which had fallen, besides 
those which struck in the logs and palisades." 

2 The date is not mentioned in Clark's "Memoirs," nor in his letter to 
George Mason, dated November 17, 1779. It is, however, accurately fixed by 
Col. R. T. Durrett, in his "Centenary of Louisville," p. 29, who remarks that 
from this day "the Falls of the Ohio was never without occupation by actual 
settlers." Ibid., p. 31. 



86 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

still remained with the expedition, though ignorant of its 
purpose and destination, as indeed were most of his very 
officers themselves. Upon Corn Island, in the Ohio, op- 
posite the present city of Louisville, Clark built a stout 
stockade, as a protection to these settlers, and a place for 
storing his surplus supplies, and the news of the establish- 
ment of this post being carried to the people living along 
the Monongahela, great numbers of them hastened to 
join it. 

As the leader of the Kentucky militia, Clark expected 
that a good many men from the Kentucky stations would 
join him, and had included them in his call for volunteers; 
but the garrisons at Boonesborough, Harrodsburg and 
Logan's Fort had their eyes turned northward and thought 
very little of the unnamed expedition preparing at Corn 
Island. Hancock had just arrived at Boonesborough 
with his tale of the impending Indian invasion, and it is 
therefore, in no wise remarkable that "only Kenton and 
Haggin left the Stations to accompany him" at this call; 
though it is remarkable that the three captains in com- 
mand of the three companies which Clark had raised be- 
yond the mountains, all figure in Kentucky pioneer history, 
while the fourth company, which joined the expedition 
just before its departure, was composed of volunteers from 
Kentucky County, commanded by Captain Jos. Mont- 
gomery.^ Of the rank and file it is more difficult to speak, 
but it is perhaps safe to say, with Colonel Durrett ^ that, 
" there were but few of Clark's volunteers when he began 
the Illinois campaign who were not, or did not after- 
wards, become citizens of Kentucky." 

1 For list of companies and captains, see Collins, I, p. 19. 

2 "Kentucky Centenary," p. 10. 



KENTUCKY'S PART IN THE REVOLUTION 87 

When everything was thought to be ready, 'Clark made 
known to his soldiers the object of his expedition, at the 
same time giving orders to prepare to march against 
Kaskaskia on the following day.^ Had his force been 
larger he would probably have advanced at once upon 
Vincennes, but he felt this to be injudicious on account 
of the fewness of his soldiers, who numbered all told less 
than two hundred men. " I knew that my case was des- 
perate," he writes,^ " but the more I reflected on my 
weakness the more I was pleased with the enterprise." 

In the early morning of June 24th (1778), the army em- 
barked, (ten men having been left behind as a garrison for 
the little fort on Corn Island,) and at nine o'clock the flo- 
tilla shot into the rapids, "at the very moment of the sun 
being in a great eclipse." After two days, with relays of 
rowers working day and night, they landed on a small 
island, "three leagues below the Tennessee," and made 
their preparations for the long overland trip which was to 
follow. Here they were joined by a party of six hunters, 
who had left Kaskaskia eight days before, and who ofi^ered 
their services upon learning that the expedition was march- 
ing against that station. One of these, John Sanders, 
Clark engaged as a guide, but refused the aid of the other 
five. Placing himself at the head of his little army, pre- 
pared to share all the hardships of his men, Clark now 
started toward the Northwest (June 26th) on an expedi- 
tion which, as Bancroft declares, "for the valor of the ac- 

1 While making his preparations at Corn Island, intelligence of the recent 
French Alliance had reached Clark from Fort Pitt. Winsor's "Westward 
Movement," p. 118. 

2 Letter of Clark to George Mason giving a detailed account of the Illinois 
campaign. It is dated Falls of Ohio, November 19, 1779, and comprises some 
one hundred odd pages of manuscript. Durrett MSS. 



88 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

tors, their fidelity to one another, the seeming feebleness 
of their means and the great results of their hardihood, 
remains forever memorable in the history of the World." 

One hundred and twenty miles of swampy and difficult 
road lay between them and Kaskaskia. "On the third 
day," writes Clark in his memoir, "John Sanders, our 
principal guide, appeared confused and we soon discov- 
ered that he was totally lost, without there was some 
other cause of his present conduct." Clark threatened va- 
rious modes of assisting his memory, but violent measures 
proved unnecessary, as Sanders shortly succeeded in get- 
ting his bearings and, on the evening of July the fourth, 
they arrived within the immediate vicinity of Kaskaskia. 
"I learned," continues Clark, "that they had some sus- 
picion of being attacked and had made some preparations, 
keeping out spies, but they making no discoveries had 
got off their guard. I immediately divided my little army 
into two divisions, ordered one to surround the town, with 
the other I broke into the fort, secured the Governor, 
Mr. Rochblave, in fifteen minutes had every street se- 
cured, sent runners through the town ordering the people 
on pain of death, to keep close to their houses, which they 
observed, and before daylight had the whole town dis- 
armed." 

The inhabitants of Kaskaskia were terrified at finding 
themselves in the hands of the Americans, from whom they 
had been taught to expect savage and brutal usage. But 
Clark treated them with great kindness, "for," he says, 
"the towns of Cohos [Cahokia] and St. Vincents [Vin- 
cennes], and the numerous tribes of Indians attached to 
the French were yet to influence — for I was too weak to 
treat them any other way. ... I sent for the principal 



KENTUCKY'S PART IN THE REVOLUTION 89 

men of the town, and explained the nature of the dispute 
to them in as clear Hght as I was capable of . . . and 
that our principle was to make those we reduced free in- 
stead of enslaving them," which treatment soon won them 
over to the American cause and they declared that they 
would, "think themselves the happiest people in the world 
if they were united with the Americans." 

Clark further announced that it was his intention, in a 
few days, to administer the oath of fidelity to the Ameri- 
can cause, but that, "in the meantime any of them that 
chose was at liberty to leave the country except two or 
three particular persons." 

He still had in mind an attack upon Vincennes as the / 
chief stronghold of the British in this region; but, before 
making this attempt, he sent a part of his forces to cap- 
ture the French settlements scattered through the Missis- 
sippi Valley, chief among which was Cahokia, a few miles 
below the present site of St. Louis. This enterprise was 
entrusted to Captain Joseph Bowman, and was accom- 
plished almost without resistance. 

Kaskaskia and Cahokia now became strongholds for 
further operations, the former being henceforth called 
Fort Clark and the latter Fort Bowman. Being inhab- 
ited by people of almost pure French extraction, whose 
hereditary dislike for the English rule had been rein- 
forced by the news of the recent French alliance, they 
proved of great assistance to Clark in his operations 
against Vincennes. 

Soon after the capture of Kaskaskia, Clark sent Simon 
Kenton to carry his dispatches to the Falls of the Ohio, 
with directions to visit on his way the British post at Vin- 
cennes, and to ascertain the exact condition of its defences. 



90 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

This service was accomplished with great care, and after 
three days spent near the town and three nights in the vil- 
lage itself, Kenton sent a messenger to report to Clark that 
the inhabitants of Vincennes, being mostly French, were 
disposed to favor the cause of the Americans; which infor- 
mation was supplemented by the statements of Father 
Gibault, priest of the villages of Kaskaskia and Vincennes. 
Gibault, won over to the American cause by Clark's 
generous treatment of his prisoners at Kaskaskia, and 
also, perhaps, by the news that France had allied herself 
with this country, attached himself to Clark's cause, and 
voluntarily proposed "to win the allegiance of the impor- 
tant town of Vincennes without the use of troops." Clark 
gladly accepted the offer, and, on July 14th, the priest 
set out on his mission. He was accompanied by Doc- 
tor Jean B. Lafont, an influential gentleman of Kas- 
kaskia, who was to act as political agent, Father Gibault 
preferring not "to seem to be acting in any than a spiritual 
capacity." Lieutenant Leonard Helm was detailed to 
watch over the American interests during the negotiations, 
and to take military command of Vincennes in case of its 
surrender. 

The mission proved entirely successful. On arriving 
at the fort Clark's envoys spent a few days in making ex- 
planations to the people, who readily accepted the pro- 
posal to join the American cause. Mr. Abbott, the Gov- 
ernor of the post, had lately gone to Detroit, and the offi- 
cers in charge hastened to leave the country. The people 
at once elected an officer, garrisoned the fort and, on Au- 
gust 1st, displayed the American flag above it, greatly to 
the wonder of the Indians, who were told that their old 
father, the King of France, had come to life again, and 



KENTUCKY'S PART IN THE REVOLUTION 91 

was angry with them for fighting for the EngHsh, and that, 
if they did not wish their land to be bloody with war, they 
must make peace with the Americans. 

As peace with the savage tribes had been the chief in- 
centive for his expedition, Clark, being now in possession 
of the desired posts, turned his attention to the Indians, 
many of whom had sought refuge in Vincennes, upon the 
news of the fall of Kaskaskia. They were eager to treat 
for peace, and, Clark remarks with evident satisfaction, 
"our influence began to spread among the nations even to 
the border of the States." ' After some five weeks spent 
in these negotiations, chiefly at Cahokia, Clark returned 
to Kaskaskia, leaving Bowman to act for him during 
his absence.^ 

Colonel Henry Hamilton was at this time acting as Lieu- 
tenant Governor at Detroit, and when Francis Maisonville 
bore to him the astonishing news of Clark's conquest of 
the Illinois Country, he at once began preparations for 
retaking it. In a letter to Governor Patrick Henry, dated 
Kaskaskia, February 3, 1779,^ Clark thus describes Hamil- 
ton's success and his own plans: 

" ... A late Menuvr. of the famous Hair Buyer, 
Henry Hamilton Esqr. Lieut. Governor of Detroit, hath 
alarmed us much; on the i6th of December last, he with 
a body of 600 men, composed of regulars, French vol- 
unteers and Indians took possession of St. Vincent on the 
Wabash and what few men that composed ^ the Garrison 
not being able to make the least defence. . . . 

1 "Memoirs." 

2 Detailed descriptions of Clark's negotiations with the Indians during this 
period will be found in Butler, 1834 Ed., Chap. IV. 

3 Durrett MSS. 

^ A letter from Lieutenant Helm to Clark, declares that, owing to desertions 



92 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

"Yesterday I fortunately got every piece of intelligence 
that I could wish for, by a Spanish Gent, that made his 
escape from Mr. Hamilton. No attack to be made on the 
Garrison at Kaskaskia until the Spring. . . . 

"Being sensible that without reinforcements, which at 
present I have hardly a right to expect, I shall be obliged 
to give up the Country to Mr. Hamilton without a turn of 
fortune in my favour, I am resolved to take advantage of 
this present situation and risque the whole in a single 
battle. I shall set out in a few days, with all the force 
I can raise of my own troops, and a few militia that I 
can depend on, amounting in the whole to only 170 .. . 
men ... I know the case is desperate, but Sir! we must 
either quit the country or attack Mr. Hamilton. ... In 
case we fall . . . this country as well as Kentucky I be- 
lieve is lost. . . ." 

Accordingly, on February 5, 1779, the little army 
started from Kaskaskia, and took up that terrible march 
of some one hundred and seventy ^ miles toward Vin- 
cennes, Captain Rogers having been previously dispatched 
with forty-six men and two four-pounders in the boat, 
"Willing," with orders to force his way up the Wabash 
as far as the mouth of the White River, there to await 
further commands. 

The march was of almost inconceivable hardship and 

at the news of Hamilton's approach, only twenty-one men were left, out of a 
garrison recently numbering about seventy. He continued to dictate this letter 
until Hamilton and the invading army were within 300 yards of the fort, and 
then closed with an expression of doubt as to whether there are four men left 
who can be depended on. "The usual Story of his (Helm's) marching out 
with one man," says Winsor ("Westward Movement," p. 131), "may perhaps 
be questioned." That story is repeated in " Smith," p. 135. 

1 English's "Clark," I, pp. 288-289. Clark himself overestimated the dis- 
tance, describing it as about 240 miles, and Hamilton commits a similar error. 



KENTUCKY'S PART IN THE REVOLUTION 93 

danger, leading for miles through drowned meadows, 
where the water, from two to three feet deep,^ was often 
filled with floating ice. But "the finest Stallion there is 
in the country," bore the gallant commander through, 
and his men followed with the dauntless courage of 
frontiersmen, long inured to hardships. The following 
entry in Major Bowman's diary, under date of Febru- 
ary 23rd, shows the spirit of these men. 

"Set ofi^," he writes, "to cross the plain, about four 
miles long, all covered with water breast high. Here we 
expected that some of our brave men must certainly 
perish, having frozen in the night and so long fasting. 
Having no other resource but wading this plain, or rather, 
lake of waters, we plunged into it with courage. Colonel 
Clark being first. In the midst of this wading rather than 
marching, a little drummer boy, who floated along on his 
drumhead, aff'orded much of the merriment that helped 
to divert the men from their hardships." 

Clark himself, in his brief but remarkable memoir, 
gives the incident, though with more of the dramatic set- 
ting which doubtless belonged to it. 

". . . . A drummer boy," he says, "the pet of the regi- 
ment, was placed on the shoulders of a tall man and or- 
dered to beat for his life. I halted and called to Major 
Bowman to fall in the rear with twenty-five men, and put 
to death any man who refused to march, as we wished to 
have none such among us. The whole gave a cry of ap- 
probation, and on we went." 

Arrived, at length, within a few miles of Vincennes, 
Clark, conscious that an attack could not be made before 
an alarm would be given, decided to avail himself of the 

1 Collins, II, p. 138. 



94 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

friendly feeling which he knew characterized most of the 
inhabitants of the town, and to play a bold game. He, 
therefore, dispatched a messenger with the following ad- 
dress: 

" To the Inhabitants of Post Vincennes — 

"Gentlemen: 

" Being now within two miles of your village, with my 
army determined to take your fort this night, and not 
being willing to surprise you, I take this method to re- 
quest such of you as are true citizens, and willing to enjoy 
the liberty I bring you, to remain still in your houses, — 
and those, if any there be, that are friends to the king, 
will instantly repair to the fort and join the hair-buyer 
general and fight like men. And if any such as do not go 
to the fort shall be discovered afterward, they may depend 
on severe punishment. On the contrary, those who are 
true friends to liberty may depend on being well treated; 
and I once more request them to keep out of the streets. 
For every one I find in arms on my arrival, I shall treat 
him as an enemy. 

" G. R. Clark." 

Such an announcement gave the inhabitants of the town 
the idea that they were about to be attacked by a power- 
ful force, and they at once concluded that the besieging 
army had just come from Kentucky, as it was considered 
impossible that an attack could be made from Illinois, on 
account of the quantity of water which covered the coun- 
try in that direction. So great was their terror that even 
the British partisans among them dared not announce 
Clark's approach to the garrison at the fort, and Hamil- 
ton, taken completely by surprise, promptly surrendered. 

"Towards the close of the day (Feb. 24, 1779), the 



KENTUCKY'S PART IN THE REVOLUTION 95 

following articles of capitulation were proposed and ac- 
cepted : 

*'i Lieutenant-Gov. Hamilton engages to deliver up to 
Colonel Clark, Fort Sackville, as it is at present, with all 
stores, etc. 

II The garrison are to deliver themselves as prisoners 
of war, and march out with their arms and accoutrements, 
etc. 

III The garrison to be delivered up to-morrow, at 10 
o'clock. 

IV Three days time to be allowed the garrison to settle 
their accounts with the inhabitants and traders of this 
place. 

V The officers of the garrison to be allowed their neces- 
sary baggage, etc. 

"Signed at post St. Vincent (Vincennes) Feb. 24 (1779). 
"Agreed for the following reasons: The remoteness 
from succor; the state and quantity of provisions, etc.; 
unanimity of officers and men in its expediency; the 
honorable terms allowed; and lastly, the confidence in a 
generous enemy. 

" [Signed] Henry Hamilton. 
" Lieutenant Governor and Superintendent." ^ 

About 10 o'clock in the morning of the following day 
the surrender was made, the arms of the enemy were se- 

1 Reprint, English's, " Life of George Rogers Clark," I, pp. 341 et seq. Clark 
to George Mason, November 19, 1779. Durrett MSS. This letter mentions 
the five articles, but does not give the reasons. In March, Hamilton, with such 
prisoners as had not been paroled, was sent under guard to Virginia. Hamilton 
remained in confinement at Williamsburg until October, 1780, when he was 
sent on parole to New York. On July 6, 1781, he made a report to Haldimand, 
which is the chief British source for the history of these campaigns. Winsor's 
"Westward Movement," p. 135. 



96 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

cured, the American flag was raised over the captured 
fort, and its name was changed to Fort Patrick Henry, in 
honor of the Governor of Virginia. 

Two days later the "WilHng" arrived with her rein- 
forcement of forty-seven men, having been delayed by the 
fierce current of the Wabash. There came with her a 
messenger from Virginia, sent to bear to Clark the con- 
gratulations of the Assembly. He bore also two new com- 
missions, one promoting Clark from Lieutenant Colonel 
to Colonel, and the other advancing Captain Joseph Bow- 
man to the rank of Major. ^ 

Thus ended in complete triumph one of the most mas- 
terly campaigns ever executed in the country. The forces 
engaged, it is true, were very few, but, judged by its results, 
it was of vast historical significance. It secured for the 
United States all that magnificent Northwest territory 
from which have been formed the present States of Ohio, 
Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin.^ It com- 
pletely defeated the policy embodied in the famous Quebec 
Act of 1774, by which England had sought to preempt 
this vast domain by attaching it to the Province of Que- 
bec, and it rendered it comparatively easy for the Ameri- 
can Commissioners, in the negotiation of the Peace of 
1783, to include within the American Union, this region 
which, without Clark's conquest, would inevitably have 
remained a possession of England. 

These great results, however, as yet lay hidden among 
the unguessed mysteries of the future. What Clark saw, 
as he left Post Vincennes in charge of Captain Helm, and 

1 English, "Life of George Rogers Clark," I, p. 350. 

2 Also that part of Minnesota on the eastern side of the Mississippi River. 
Durrett's "Kentucky Centenary," p, 10. 



KENTUCKY'S PART IN THE REVOLUTION 97 

boarded the "Willing" bound for Kaskaskia, was that 
there still remained two British stations, Detroit and 
Sandusky, the conquest of which was an essential part of 
his plan for securing Kentucky from Indian invasions. 
It was from these points, as he quite well understood, 
and not from Kaskaskia and Vincennes, that the Shaw- 
nees and their confederates, the most persistent of the 
savage enemies of Kentucky, drew the support and in- 
spiration for their border warfare; and he felt that, unless 
he could complete his program and add these two sta- 
tions to the conquest already achieved, he could not rest 
satisfied. 

As to Detroit, he chafed under the necessity of allowing 
it to escape him, now that Hamilton was a prisoner, and 
the post guarded by only about eighty regular troops. 
"Had I been able to raise only five hundred men when 
I first arrived in the country," he writes, "or when I was 
at St. Vincent's could I have secured my prisoners, and 
only have had three hundred good men, I should have 
attempted it." ^ But as these things were manifestly 
impossible of accomplishment, with the force at his dis- 
posal, he was obliged to abandon the idea — temporarily, 
as he hoped. 

He was shortly relieved of the civil government of the 
conquered region by the arrival of Captain John Todd, 
whom Governor Henry had appointed to govern the new 
country, and, having sent duplicate dispatches to Henry 
and Jefferson (April 29, 1779),^ describing his campaign, 
he set about arranging for his return to the Falls of the 
Ohio. 

1 See Butler, p. 87. 

2 Winsor's "Westward Movement," p. 136. 

Kentucky — 7 



98 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

Upon arriving in Kentucky, Clark found that great 
changes had taken place during his brief year of absence. 
New stations had sprung up, and immigration, which for 
some time had been at a standstill, had begun anew, as 
the news of his victories in the Illinois country gave fresh 
confidence to men inclined to seek homes in the great 
West. During the year 1778 only two new settlements, 
in addition to Clark's little garrison on Corn Island, had 
appeared in Kentucky, but the renewed immigration of 
1779 caused the establishment of no less than fourteen, 
most of which had been started before Clark reached 
the Falls in the autumn. 

At the Falls itself, Clark found that an equally aston- 
ishing progress had been made, of most of which he was 
entitled to consider himself the author. He had estab- 
lished the germs of a settlement on Corn Island the 
previous year, and a few months later, just after the cap- 
ture of Kaskaskia, had sent Captain William Linn to 
conduct home his three months' volunteers, whose terms 
of enlistment had expired,^ directing him also to erect a 
permanent fort on the Kentucky mainland, above the 
Falls, and to remove to it the families of Corn Island, 
which latter post was to be abandoned.^ A good many, 
perhaps a majority of the discharged troops, had gone no 
farther than the Falls, and Linn, in obedience to Clark's 
orders, had arranged for a station on the mainland. He 
had entrusted the task of constructing the new fortifica- 
tions to Richard Chenowith who, by Christmas Day, 1778, 

1 Linn was also entrusted with the duty of taking Rochblave, late commander 
of Kaskaskia, to Williamsburg where he was to be delivered over to the Virginia 
authorities. Winsor's "Westward Movement," p. 120; Collins, I, p. 19; Butler, 
p. 64. 

2 Smith, p. 120; Butler, p. 63. 



KENTUCKY'S PART IN THE REVOLUTION 99 

had carried the work so far that a number of the families 
from Corn Island had celebrated the Christmas season in 
their new cabins, which stood at the foot of what is now 
Twelfth Street, Louisville.^ Then, too, during the early 
part of the year 1779, most of the settlers entering the Ken- 
tucky region had chosen the route down the Ohio, and 
many of them had found their way to this new estab- 
lishment, which rejoiced in the reputation of being the 
headquarters of the conqueror of the Illinois. Toward 
the middle of April, these latter had joined the older 
settlers from Corn Island in a meeting, and seven trustees 
had been selected, to arrange for the regular government 
of the town, which received the name of "Louisville," 
in honor of our nation's only ally, King Louis XVI of 
France. 

But to return to Indian affairs. Clark soon had enough 
evidence, if indeed evidence were needed, to confirm him 
in the conviction that Indian wars would continue until 
Detroit and Sandusky were captured, and the mischievous 
British garrisons wholly expelled from the Northwest 
posts. Bands of savage marauders ceaselessly traversed 
the forests of Kentucky County, and infested the two great 
highways, the Ohio River and the old Wilderness Road, 
causing adventures of thrilling interest, when told by the 
light of a camp fire within a stout palisade, but which, 
for the leader of the Kentucky militia, meant new cam- 
paigns and untold hardships. He learned the terrible 
details of the captivity of his gallant messenger, Simon 
Kenton, ^ and the story of the retreat of Colonel John Bow- 

1 In the Southern Bivouac of January, 1884, Col. R. T. Durrett gives an 
interesting description of this first Christmas at the Falls. 

2 The whole ghastly story is told in Marshall, I, pp. 74-77. It is also repro- 



100 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

man, who, during the previous July, had led a gallant ex- 
pedition against Old Chillicothe, and had there met a 
total defeat, owing to his failure to give the signal of at- 
tack, previously agreed upon with the other commander, 
Captain Benjamin Logan.^ 

By this time, too, Kentucky was feeling the terrors of 
the famous hard winter of 1779, during which the rivers 
were completely blocked with ice for three months, and 
supplies became so scarce that the price of corn ranged 
from fifty,^ to one hundred and seventy-five dollars a ' 
bushel, in the depreciated Continental Currency. "The 
hard winter," says Trabue,^ " began about the first of No- 
vember, 1779, and broke up the last of February, 1780, 
the turkeys was almost all dead the buffaloes had got poor, 
peoples cattle mostly dead no corn or but very little in the 
country the people was in great distress many in the wil- 
derness frost bit some dead, some eat of the dead cattle 
and horses, when the winter broak the men would 
go and Kill the buffloes and bring them home to eat 
but they was so poore a number of people would be 
taken sick and did actually die for the want of solid 
food." 

And yet in spite of these combined miseries, the Land 
Commission continued to adjudicate claims, and intend- 
ing settlers to purchase land titles in Kentucky. The 

duced in detail in Smith, pp. 128-133. Kenton had escaped and returned to 
Kentucky only a few months before Clark's return. See Boone's "Autobiog- 
raphy." 

1 Bowman lost eight or nine men, but succeeded in killing two famous Indian 
chiefs, Blackfish and Red Hawk. For details see Marshall, I, pp. 91-95, and 
Butler, pp. 108-110. Both these authorities give July as the month of the ex- 
pedition, but Collins, I, p. 19, puts it among the events of May, 1779. 

2 Butler, p. 99, note. 

3 Daniel Trabue's " Autobiography and Diary," Durrett MSB. 



KENTUCKY'S PART IN THE REVOLUTION lOl 

immigration of 1780 was far greater than it had ever been 
before. Three hundred large family boats arrived at 
Louisville during the first months of spring, with three 
thousand souls aboard; and before the season was over, 
six stations, containing in all some six hundred settlers, 
adorned the rich banks of the Beargrass; while progress 
was almost equally rapid in many other parts of the 
country.^ 

As the tide of immigration increased, the Virginia land 
surveyors, to aid its flow, laid out a new road over the 
Cumberland mountains, leading toward "the open country 
of Kentucky," so as "to give passage to pack-horses," ^ 
and over it, through the Wilderness Road, or down the 
Ohio River, population was soon pouring at a rate esti- 
mated at from eight to ten thousand a year. And still the 
mad rush for land went on. Occasionally an Indian at- 
tack, or the vague rumor of a coming invasion, would 
cause a momentary lull; a scouting party would be or- 
ganized and dispatched, and the heart of the wilderness 
would again palpitate with the Anglo-Saxon passion, the 
pursuit of land. 

Meanwhile Clark was devoting his energies to a plan, 
conceived as early as 1778 by Patrick Henry, and designed 
to strengthen the claim of the United States to a western 
boundary at the Mississippi, south of the Ohio.^ Henry, 
at that time Governor of Virginia, had felt that a strong 
fort near the mouth of the Ohio would probably accom- 
plish this result, if held by American troops when the peace 
negotiations with England should take place, but he had 

1 Floyd's " Correspondence," quoted by Butler, p. 99, note. 

2 Winsor's " Westward Movement," p. 136. 

3 Pitkin's " United States," II, p. 95. 



102 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

not found a time when the Virginia treasury could afford 
to undertake it. In April, 1780, however, Thomas Jeffer- 
son, who had succeeded to the office of Governor of 
Virginia, announced to Clark his determination to estab- 
lish such a fort, and ordered him forthwith to begin its 
construction. The project was extremely unpopular in 
Kentucky, where it was felt that the defence of such a post 
would uselessly weaken the Kentucky settlements; but 
Clark favored it, and declared that, if necessary, he would 
withdraw some of the troops from the Illinois posts in 
order to garrison it properly.^ 

As Clark designed to make this new station not only a 
military post but an important settlement as well, he se- 
lected, as its site, a point at the junction of the Ohio and 
the Mississippi, conveniently situated to command the 
trade of an extensive country on both sides of those 
rivers, and there, with a force of two hundred men, he 
erected several stout blockhouses and a fort, to which he 
gave the name Fort Jefferson. While engaged in the con- 
struction of this fort,^ Clark kept a close watch upon the 
Northwest, feeling certain that a British-Indian expedi- 
tion against the Kentucky posts would soon be set on 
foot by the authorities at Detroit; and, toward the end 
of May, 1780, he saw that the attack was imminent. He, 
therefore, cut short his stay at Fort Jefferson, and, with 
two companions, all completely disguised as Indians, made 

1 Todd to Jefferson. Reprint, English's " Life of George Rogers Clark," 
II, p. 671. 

2 In 1781, Fort Jefferson endured a prolonged siege from the Chickasaws 
and Choctaws, led by a renegade Scotchman named Colbert. The siege 
was raised by Clark himself, who appeared at the critical moment with re- 
inforcements and provisions. The abandonment of the station shortly fol- 
lowed. 



KENTUCKY'S PART IN THE REVOLUTION 103 

his way on foot to Harrodsburg, ^ for the purpose of or- 
ganizing the county for defence. He even hoped to take 
the initiative, in case the invasion were delayed, and, by a 
timely expedition into the enemies' country, to prevent 
any attack for the present. At Harrodsburg, finding the 
land office the center of activity, he ordered it closed, / 

and proceeded to enlist troops from among its eager pa- 
trons. 

While Clark was thus occupied, the dreaded invasion 
came, sudden and resistless. On June 22, 1780, Colonel 
Byrd, an officer in the service of His Britannic Majesty, 
at the head of some six hundred ^ painted demons of the 
forest, appeared before Ruddle's Station and, by a display 
of cannon, forced a surrender at discretion. 

A similar exploit was next performed at Martin's Station, 
a few miles away, and it began to look as if the day for the 
savage reconquest of Kentucky had come.^ In truth, the 
invading army was so overwhelmingly powerful, that, had 
it been held together and intelligently handled, it might 
easily have swept the country; but it was, after all, an 
Indian army, and it acted with the caution, characteristic 
of the savage. Having so easily secured numerous pris- 
oners and a goodly pile of plunder, it declined farther to 
tempt fate, and hastily retired to camps beyond the Ohio."* 

1 Butler, pp. 115-117, gives some interesting details of this journey. 

2 Marshall, I, p. 107, says six hundred, doubtless following Boone's "Auto- 
biography" which gives the same figures. Collins, I, p. 20, also gives si.x hun- 
dred: but, in Vol. II, p. 328, raises the number to one thousand. 

3 It is said (Butler, p. no, note) that this expedition had been planned to 
cooperate with a similar expedition which Governor Hamilton had projected, 
but which had been eflfectually prevented by the achievement of George Rogers 
Clark at Vincennes. 

* Collins, II, pp. 328-329, gives another explanation of the retreat. The In- 
dians, he says, were eager to march at once against Bryan's Station, and Lex- 
ington, but Colonel Byrd refused. In the "Outline History," Collins, I, p. 



104 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

Clark promptly called for volunteers for a counter in- 
vasion, and, with the little army already enlisted, soon 
found himself in command of one thousand men, ready 
to march to the heart of the Indian country. With this 
force he advanced against Chillicothe, and captured it 
without difficulty, the Indians abandoning the town be- 
fore him, and fleeing for their lives. After burning 
houses and destroying crops, Clark pushed on to Piqua, 
a well built and strongly fortified town, garrisoned by sev- 
eral hundred Indians, under the famous renegade, Simon 
Girty. Here a determined resistance was offered, but 
Clark placed his little cannon in a position to be most 
effective, and soon forced the savages to abandon the 
town. The buildings and crops were destroyed and 
Colonel Benjamin Logan was sent ahead with a detach- 
ment to a village some twenty miles distant, to demolish 
the store from which the Indians had been chiefly sup- 
plied with arms and ammunition. This having been 
accomplished without resistance, the army returned to 
Kentucky, having spent only four weeks in an expedition 
which left the savages almost destitute on the verge of a 
hard winter, and so subdued, that no great body of Indians 
entered Kentucky for almost two years, although the fact 
that small bands continued to burn and kill, is attested 
by the following letter, from Colonel John Floyd to Jeffer- 
son, dated April, 1781.^ 

"We are all obliged," he writes, "to live in forts in this 
country and notwithstanding all the caution that we use, 
forty-seven inhabitants have been killed and taken prisoner 

254, McCIung calls the British commander Colonel Bird and declares that "the 
impatience of the Indians" compelled him to retire. 

1 "Virginia State Papers," II, p. 48. Quoted English's "Life of George 
Rogers Clark," II, p. 748. 



KENTUCKY'S PART IN THE REVOLUTION 105 

by the savages, besides a number wounded since January 
last. . . . 

"Whole families are destroyed without regard to age 
or sex. Infants are torn from their mothers' arms, and 
their brains dashed out against trees, as they are neces- 
sarily moving from one fort to another for safety or con- 
venience. Not a week passes and some weeks scarcely 
a day without some of our distressed inhabitants feeling 
the fatal effects of the infernal rage and fury of these 
execrable hell-hounds." 

Meanwhile the Shawnee chiefs had spent some months 
in arranging a grand union of the Northern and West- 
ern tribes. They had seen, from the events of the last 
year, that, if the Kentuckians were ever to be expelled 
from their land, it must be by a union of the Indians, 
and must be done very soon. Accordingly, runners had 
been sent out in every direction, to secure the aid of the 
chiefs of the different tribes; while small scouting par- 
ties had gone into Kentucky to engage the attention of 
the white men, and thus prevent the discovery of their 
plans. A confederation of the Cherokees, Wyandots, 
Tawas, Pottawotomies, Delawares, Shawnees, and other 
tribes dwelling near the Mississippi, or the lakes, had been 
formed, and it had been agreed that the warriors of this 
formidable confederation should meet at Old Chillicothe, 
the following summer, (1782) and march in force through 
Kentucky, burning and plundering without mercy. The 
British authorities had also promised their aid for the 
invasion, confident that at last they were to be avenged 
for the disgrace of Vincennes.^ 

In the midst of these preparations came the welcome 

1 Marshall, I, pp. 118, 131. 



Io6 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

news, that, on October 19th, 1781, Cornwallis had been 
forced to surrender; and the pioneers rejoiced in the 
thought that the long war was at an end, and indulged 
in the vain hope that no savage invasions would disturb 
them during the coming spring. They were soon unde- 
ceived, however, for when the spring of 1782 opened, 
the Indians began to put into execution their matured 
plans. Their attacks were even more terrific than usual, 
representing as they did the final eff^orts of an almost de- 
spairing race. Massacres followed one another in terrible 
succession — almost every section of the three counties 
adding its quota to the lists of slain. Then suddenly, 
about the beginning of August, the attacks abruptly ceased, 
and scarcely an Indian was to be seen within the whole 
territory of Kentucky. Fortunately the settlers were not 
deceived by this sudden quiet. They knew that it meant 
the approach of larger bands of the enemy, and it was a 
matter of grave uncertainty as to which post would be 
first attacked. Each station prepared for resistance as 
though it had been singled out for the first victim, and the 
settlers, deserting their isolated dwellings, pressed into the 
fortified towns. 

Meanwhile the whole Indian Confederation, with the 
British detachment, had assembled at Chillicothe, under 
command of Captain William Caldwell.^ Here Simon 
Girty, in order to stir up their fiendish passions to the 
utmost, delivered an eloquent address ^ to the savages, 

1 Kentucky historians have generally represented Simon Girty as com- 
mander-in-chief both in the siege of Bryant's Station, and at the battle of Blue 
Licks which immediately followed; but later information shows this to be a 
mistake. Durrett's "Bryant's Station," p. 31. 

2 Marshall, I, p. 132, summarizes the speech, and Bradford, in his " Notes on 
Kentucky," gives it in the first person, indicating the plaudits of the hearers. 



KENTUCKY'S PART IN THE REVOLUTION 1 07 

reciting in vivid phrases their wrongs and injuries, re- 
minding them of the attacks which had lately been made 
upon their villages, and of the destruction of their houses 
and crops. He bade them recall the former beauty of 
their old hunting ground, now almost destroyed by the 
white men, and exhorted them to use this last opportunity 
of freeing it from the intruders. 

After this and similar speeches, the army of four 
hundred crossed the river and stealthily moved toward 
Bryant's Station upon the Elkhorn.^ So quiet was their 
approach that not a man at the station suspected their 
presence until next morning at daybreak, August 15, 1782,^ 
when the little garrison of forty-four men,^ preparing to 
march out of the fort on their way to assist the garri- 
son at Hoy's Station, heard firing near by. "All ran 
hastily to the picketing," says McClung, "and beheld a 
small party of Indians exposed to open view, firing, yel- 
ling and making the most furious gestures. The appear- 
ance was so singular and so different from their usual 
manner of fighting, that some of the more wary and ex- 
perienced of the garrison instantly pronounced it, " a de- 
coy." ^ It was, therefore, decided to send a few men to re- 
turn the fire, and thus induce the main body of the enemy, 
who, as it was rightly supposed, had concealed themselves 
on the side opposite to the decoy party, to attack the fort. 

Accordingly, thirteen men were sent out against the 

1 Collins, I, p. 20; Butler, p. 124. Colonel Durrett, in his "Bryant's Sta- 
tion," pp. 33-34, examines critically the question of the number of Indians and 
decides in favor of "about 400." 

2 For critical proof of this date (i. e., August 15th, 1782) see Durrett's "Bry- 
ant's Station," p. 34. 

3 Bradford's "Notes on Kentucky." Durrett MSS. 

*McClung's "Stories of Western Adventure; " Hartley's "Boone," p. 179. 



I08 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

decoy party, with orders to make as much noise as possi- 
ble, that they might convince the main body of the enemy 
that all the garrison was engaged at that side. The 
plan was successful. As soon as the rapid firing com- 
menced on the far side of the fort, Caldwell and his war- 
riors rushed fiercely upon the western gate, but the garri- 
son stood coolly at their posts, and poured out such a 
deadly fire that the besiegers wavered, and then fled into 
the woods in every direction. 

The Indians now began the siege in the regular way; 
but, having no cannon, they could accomplish little against 
the able defence of the fort. Almost every mode of attack 
was tried and abandoned during the day; and, as night 
approached, they began to grow restless, knowing that 
reinforcements might arrive at any moment. In order to 
hasten the surrender, Girty approached the fort, and de- 
clared that resistance was useless, as, with the arrival of 
the cannon which he expected shortly, he could easily 
force an entrance. He promised his protection if the garri- 
son would surrender at once: but declared that he would 
not be responsible for the result, if they compelled him to 
let his warriors take the fort by storm. 

A young man named Reynolds came forward and re- 
plied for the garrison. He declared that they had no in- 
tention of surrendering, and that "they also expected re- 
inforcements; that the whole country was marching to 
their assistance; that if Girty and his gang of murderers 
remained twenty-four hours longer before the fort, their 
scalps would be found drying in the sun upon the roofs of 
their cabins." ^ 

Girty at once retired, and in the morning the Indian 

1 McClung, quoted by Hartley's "Boone," p. 187. 



KENTUCKY'S PART IN THE REVOLUTION 109 

camp was entirely deserted. In a siege of several days 
they had killed but four men, while they had lost seven or 
eight times that number. For this reason they had de- 
cided to change their position, in the hope of gaining some 
advantage, conscious of the fact that no Kentucky station 
had as yet been taken without the aid of cannon. They 
followed an old buffalo path which led to the lower Blue 
Licks, and were evidently desirous of being pursued, as 
they left a plain trail behind them, marking the trees with 
their tomahawks, as they went along. 

Meanwhile the news, that Bryant's Station was be- 
sieged by a powerful force, had attracted reinforcements 
from all sides, and, before the next night, one hundred and 
eighty-one horsemen were assembled, under the command 
of the most prominent leaders in the district.^ A council 
was held, and it was decided to start immediately in pur- 
suit of the Indians, without waiting for the arrival of 
Colonel Logan who was known to be approaching with a 
force of three hundred men. 

All along the path which the enemy had taken, were 
ostentatious signs of a disorderly retreat, which Boone and 
some of the more experienced of his companions pro- 
nounced "danger signs," the evident intention of the In- 
dians being to deceive their pursuers as to their strength, 
and thus lead them to make a hasty and unguarded at- 
tack. As they came within sight of the Licking River, 
and of a few leisurely retreating Indians, there was a wild 
desire on the part of some of the men to attack at once. 
In vain Boone cautioned them against such a course, de- 

^ Boone's letter to Governor Harrison, August 30, 1782. Reprint, Hartley's 
"Boone," pp. 200-203, ^"so Marshall, I, p. 136, and Butler, p. 125. In this 
letter Boone declared that almost one-third of the whole force thus assembled, 
was composed of commissioned oflScers. Hartley's " Boone," p. 190. 



no KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

daring that the enemy were undoubtedly very strong and 
thoroughly prepared for battle. He urged that, if they 
were determined upon an attack before Logan's forces 
should join them, it should at least be made with due 
caution to avoid an ambuscade. 

At this point Major McGary dashed into the river calling 
out, "Those who are not cowards, follow me; I will show 
them where the Indians are," and, at the challenge, the 
whole party dashed after him and attacked the , Indians 
with great spirit, but with no order or system. 

The savages retreated until they reached a spot where 
the ridge which they had followed was cut by two ravines, 
one on each side of the path, the very point against which 
Boone had warned his comrades. In these ravines were 
concealed the entire savage army, who, finding that their 
enemy were at last in their power, opened a fire which 
thinned the ranks of the white men, and caused a mad 
panic. Before the terrified Kentuckians could draw back, 
the Indians had extended their lines so as completely to 
surround them, and the retreat became a race for life. 

Boone, after seeing his son slain before his face, at- 
tempted to gain the ford, but the way was blocked by 
several hundred of the enemy. Returning, therefore, to 
the ravine which the Indians had left, he followed it to the 
river, which he crossed just below the ford, in company 
with a few companions, and, by a circuitous path, soon 
reached Bryant's Station. 

The ford was the scene of a fierce struggle, and few, ex- 
cept the horsemen, would have escaped but for the heroic 
manner in which Netherland, who had previously been 
looked upon as a coward, rallied a small band of his com- 
rades who had already crossed, and checked the enemy 



KENTUCKY'S PART IN THE REVOLUTION 1 1 1 

for a few moments, thus giving his friends an opportunity 
to get over. Although the Indians soon effected a crossing, 
and continued the pursuit for tw^enty miles, it was with 
little success, as the routed army had taken to the woods, 
each man following the pathway of his own choosing. 

As the fugitives straggled into camp they met Colo- 
nel Logan, advancing with his detachment of three hun- 
dred men, which, but for the foolish daring of Major 
McGary, might have made the battle of Blue Licks a vic- 
tory, instead of the most disastrous defeat of pioneer 
times. 

As the news of this catastrophe spread through Ken- 
tucky, there arose a feeling of general discouragement. 
So many disasters, in such rapid succession, could but cast 
a gloom over the country; and men began to feel that, un- 
less relief should speedily be secured, they must give up all 
hope of maintaining their settlements. Boone, in his 
letter to Governor Harrison, voiced this sentiment in the 
following words: "I have encouraged the people in this 
country all that I could; but I can no longer justify them 
or myself to risk our lives here under such extraordinary 
hazards. The inhabitants . . . are very much alarmed at 
the thoughts of the Indians bringing another campaign 
into our country this fall. If this should be the case, it 
will break up these settlements." ^ 

But even before Boone's complaint had been dispatched, 
Clark had sent forth his call for renewed battle, and 
terror and despair were forgotten, as pioneers from every 
point in the three counties flocked to his banner, thirst- 
ing for the vengeance which the leader had so often 
shown himself able to procure for them; and when the 

1 Boone to Benjamin Harrison, August 30, 1782. Durrett MSS. 



112 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

final muster roll was called at the mouth of the Licking, 
over one thousand soldiers answered to their names. 
Early in November, 1782, ^ they moved forward, crossed 
the Ohio, and " surprised the principal Shawnee town on 
the evening of the loth, immediately detaching strong 
parties to different quarters. In a few hours two-thirds 
of the town was laid in ashes, and everything they were 
possessed of, destroyed, except such articles as might be 
useful to the troops. The enemy had no time to secrete 
any part of their property which was in the town. 

"The British trading post at the head of the Miami, 
the carrying place to the waters of the lake, shared the 
same fate, at the hands of a party of one hundred and 
fifty horse, commanded by Colonel Benjamin Logan. The 
property destroyed was of great amount, and the quan- 
tity of provisions burned surpassed all idea we had of the 
Indian stores. 

"The loss of the enemy was ten scalps, seven prisoners, 
two whites retaken. Ours was one killed and one wounded. 
After lying part of four days in their towns and finding all 
attempts to bring the enemy to a general action fruitless, 
we retired, as the season was far advanced and the winter 
threatening." 

Such is the simple narrative in which Clark reported 
to Governor Harrison of Virginia, the result of this expe- 
dition which "ended forever all formidable Indian inva- 
sions of Kentucky." 

The remainder of the year was quiet, as the Indians 
removed even their scouts and plundering parties from 

1 Marshall, I, p. 147, gives September and is followed by Butler, p. 131. 
Collins, I, p. 20, puts the expedition in November, 1782. The present account 
is based chieQy upon Clark's letter to Governor Benjamin Harrison, dated 
November 37, 1782, and reprinted in English's "Clark," II, p. 760. 



KENTUCKY'S PART IN THE REVOLUTION 113 

Kentucky, and, a few months later (spring of 1783), 
travelers brought the joyful news that a provisional treaty 
of peace had been signed between America and England 
on November 30, 1782. It was not, indeed, until April 
nth of the following year that a proclamation was issued 
by the authority of Congress, declaring a cessation of 
hostilities between the two countries, and not until Sep- 
tember 3d, 1783, that the formal and definitive treaty was 
signed at Paris: but the British had lost hope of conquer- 
ing the rebels long before; and Independence had been 
felt to be an assured fact as soon as the news of Corn- 
wallis' surrender at Yorktown (October 19, 1781) was re- 
ceived. 

Even the treaty of peace, however, did not mean peace 
for Kentucky. The British held a number of the North- 
west posts long after the Treaty of Paris was signed, and 
continued to rouse the Indians to attacks upon the Amer- 
ican frontier: but the great war period of Kentucky his- 
tory had closed with Clark's last expedition into the Indian 
country, and the future struggles take the form largely of 
personal adventures, and in no instance again assume the 
dignity of real warfare. The Indian power in Kentucky 
had been subdued, by the manly courage of the settlers, 
under the leadership of Clark and Boone, and in the proc- 
ess of vanquishing the enemy, the people had, all uncon- 
sciously, produced a State. 



Kentucky — 8 



CHAPTER IV 

KENTUCKY ENTERS THE UNION 

When the news of the Peace of Paris reached Kentucky, 
some six months after it was signed, it was generally sup- 
posed that Indian hostilities would cease; but the fail- 
ure, on the part of each country, faithfully to observe its 
pledges caused an increase in the attacks upon the frontier. 
The savages, as allies of the British, had of course no 
justification for continuing hostilities; but they had never 
had any adequate conception of the nature and conse- 
quences of the contest, and, not having themselves been 
conquered in most sections of the country, they could not 
understand how they could have been conquered "abroad 
by proxy." ^ The British officers and soldiers garrisoned 
in the Northwest posts, which, upon various pretexts, 
were not surrendered according to the terms of the treaty 
of peace, encouraged rather than discountenanced this 
attitude, and Congress, in this as in most other matters, 
was impotent. 

France and Spain, also, secretly rejoiced at these devas- 
tations, their aid having been given to the Americans, dur- 
ing the war, solely from a desire to injure England. While 
the negotiations of the peace were in progress, they had 
secretly combined to limit the boundary of the United 
States by the Alleghanies, or at most by the Ohio: and, 
but for the fact that John Jay had discovered their de- 

1 Littell's "Political Transactions in and Concerning Kentucky," pp. 9, 10. 

"4 



KENTUCKY ENTERS THE UNION 115 

signs,^ they might easily have succeeded, as Congress, in 
a moment of bhnd gratitude for the aid and countenance 
which France had given her, had instructed her com- 
missioners to "undertake nothing in the negotiations for 
peace or truce without their knowledge and concurrence," 
(referring to the French Court), and "ultimately to govern 
yourselves by their advice and opinion," Once discovered, 
the scheme had been easily defeated by our commissioners, 
and the final result was an unconditional acknowledg- 
ment of the independence of the United States, and the 
settlement of a boundary as ample as the needs of the 
States required. 

But this outcome did not tend to produce, in the minds / 
of the disappointed French and Spanish allies, a love for i' 
the new Republic, and, for years to come, secret agents, 
of the one or the other nation, were almost constantly 
employed with schemes for detaching the West, and par- 
ticularly the rich Kentucky district, from her control. 

Early in 1784 there appeared in Lexington, as the chief 
agent of a great trading company just organized in Phila- 
delphia, General James Wilkinson, whose life from this 
time is closely connected with the history of Kentucky's 
struggle for separation from Virginia. Though he came 
as an agent, he came as a citizen also, and, from the first, 
identified himself with the district. For a man of his 
ability and eminence to settle in this new country, was in 
itself flattering, for he had been a distinguished leader in 
the Revolution, and had been made Brigadier General , 
on account of valuable service at Saratoga. Besides this ' 
fact, which alone would have sufficed to make him a 
marked man among the simple hunters of Kentucky, he 

1 Fiske's " Critical Period," p. 22. 



Il6 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

was an eloquent speaker, a clear thinker, and a man of 
more than ordinary attainments, even for the older States. 
Mr. Marshall thus describes him: ^ — "A person not quite 
tall enough to be perfectly elegant, compensated by its sym- 
metry and appearance of health and strength. A counte- 
M nance open, mild, capacious, and beaming with intelli- 
gence; a gait firm, manly, and facile; manners bland, 
accommodating, and popular; an address easy, polite and 
gracious, invited approach, gave access, assured attention, 
cordiality and ease." 

As to what his character was, there is great uncertainty. 
Some of his biographers depict him as an arch traitor, 
while others declare him to have been a man of the highest 
honor and patriotism. But, whatever his motives, it is 
certain that no man was more thoroughly identified with 
Kentucky's struggle for independence. 

As the District of Kentucky grew more populous, it 
was natural that a desire should spring up, on the part of 
her leading men, for a government where their counsels 
might have more force, and where the needs of the Dis- 
trict might be better realized than they could be, while 
the laws were passed at Richmond, which, under the 
V conditions of travel then prevailing, was a very long dis- 
tance away.^ All that was needed, therefore, was a pretext 
for asking the Assembly of Virginia to grant them inde- 
pendence, and this pretext soon presented itself, in the 
form of a military necessity. 

In 1784, Colonel Benjamin Logan discovered that the 
Cherokee tribes were planning a great invasion against 

1 Marshall, 1824 Ed., I, p. 165. 

2 See "The Wilderness Road," in Filson Club Publications, by Captain 
Thomas Speed. 



I 



KENTUCKY ENTERS THE UNION 117 

the southern frontier of Kentucky, and that a similar move 
was being arranged against her northern settlements. He 
accordingly called a general meeting at Danville, and laid 
before it the information which he had received, asking 
for a discussion and action upon the question of how 
the attacks could be most successfully combated. The 
opinion was general that the best way to meet the threat- 
ened danger was to prepare a military expedition and at- 
tack the Indians, before they could complete their plans of 
invasion. But, upon further investigation, it was found 
that, as there was no declared state of war, "No man or 
set of men in the District was invested with authority to 
call the militia into service" for offensive measures.^ This 
discovery put an end to the proposed expedition, which 
in this particular instance was fortunate, as the expected 
invasions did not occur. It proved to the people, how- 
ever, how helpless was their position in case of pressing 
need; while discussion and investigation showed that the 
District was in every way, save in law, competent to con- 
duct her own military operations. They therefore decided 
to request the Assembly of Virginia to pass an act, ena- 
bling the District of Kentucky to organize as a State, and 
to enter the Union, if accepted by the Confederation.^ 

In the actions of this first convention, as in all that 
follow, we see a profound respect and reverence for law. 
Realizing that they had no authority to make such a re- 

1 Littell's "Political Transactions in and Concerning Kentucky," p. 15. 

2 This was no new idea even then. On May 15th, 178c, a memorial, signed 
by 672 inhabitants of the "Counties of Kaintuckey and Illinois," had been sent 
to Congress, begging "that the Continental Congress will take Proper Methods 
to form us into a Separate State." The manuscript is No. 48, of the series of 
papers of the old Congress preserved in the State Department at Washington. 
Quoted, Brown's "Political Beginnings of Kentucky," p. 59. 



'-'^ 



Il8 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

quest, they published a recommendation that, on a certain 
day, each mihtary company in the District should elect 
one representative, and that these representatives should 
meet at Danville, on December 27, 1784, to "devise if 
possible some means of preserving their country from that 
immediate destruction which seemed then impending." ^ 
The suggestion w2ls v^ell received, and on the proposed 
day, the representatives met at Danville, formed them- 
selves into a deliberative assembly and proceeded at once 
to business.^ There v^ere a number of spectators present, 
who listened with interest to the prolonged debate upon 
the advisability of a separation from Virginia, and, al- 
though there was considerable difference of opinion upon 
that question, there was a unanimous desire manifested 
that, whatever was done should be done in strict accord- 
ance with the laws of the parent State. A large majority 
favored the plan of petitioning the Assembly of Virginia, 
and, through it. Congress, for the passage of an act by 
which Kentucky might become an independent member 
of the Confederacy. They felt, however, that, as this had 
not been clearly and specifically proposed in the recom- 
mendation which had caused their election, they had not 
the authority to take so decided a step. They therefore 
contented themselves with passing a resolution earnestly 
recommending that the people of Kentucky, at the next 
regular election of delegates to the Virginia Legislature, 
should choose representatives, who should meet in the 
following May, with full power to petition the Assembly 

1 Littell's "Political Transactions," p. 16. See also "Appendix," p. i, for 
date, etc. 

2 The earliest known copy of the Minutes are given in "Lettres d'un 
Cultivateur Americain — De Creve Coeur a Paris — 1787," Tome, III, pp. 
438-440. 



KENTUCKY ENTERS THE UNION 119 

of Virginia for an act of separation,^ and, through it, to 
petition Congress for admission into the Confederation. 

Accordingly, on the 23rd of May, 1785, the "Second 
Assembly of Kentucky" met at Danville and drew up the 
following five resolutions:- 

" I. Resolved (unanimously), as the opinion of this con- 
vention, That a petition be presented to the Assembly, 
praying that this District may be established into a State, 
separate from Virginia. 

"2. Resolved (unanimously), as the opinion of this con- 
vention. That this District, when established into a State, 
ought to be taken into the Union with the United States of 
America; and enjoy equal privileges in common with the 
said States. 

"3. Resolved, That this Convention recommend it to 
their constituents, to elect deputies in their respective 
counties, to meet at Danville on the second Monday of 
August next, to serve in convention, and to continue 
by adjournment till the first day of April next, to take 
further under their consideration the state of the Dis- 
trict. 

"4. Resolved (unanimously): That the election of the 
deputies for the proposed convention, ought to be on the 
principle of ' equal representation.' 

"5. Resolved: That the petition to the Assembly for 
establishing this District into a State, and the several 
resolves of the former and present Conventions, upon 
which the petition is founded, together with all other mat- 
ters relative to the interest of the District, that have been 

1 The Constitution of Virginia had made provision for the erection of one or 
more governments in the Western territory when occasion might require. Lit- 
tell's "Political Transactions," p. 15. 

2 Marshall, 1824 Ed., I, p. 196. 



120 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

under their consideration, be referred to the future con- 
vention, that such further measures may be taken thereon 
as they shall judge proper." ^ 

The "Second Assembly of Kentucky" thus signally 
failed to accomplish the object of its meeting, in that it 
refused to take the final step, and make application for 
the desired separation, although it had been elected for that 
specific purpose, and a feeling of uneasiness and impa- 
tience began to manifest itself in the community, due not 
only to the failure of the convention to do its duty, but 
also to the unfortunate impression which the Confedera- 
tion was making upon the people of the District. They 
were coming to realize, more fully each day, the utter im- 
becility of the central government, which either could not, 
or would not, protect them from the dangers incident upon 
the British possession of the posts in the Northwest; and 
vague rumors were being circulated, to the efi^ect that 
Congress was on the point of abandoning all claim to the 
navigation of the Mississippi, for twenty-five years; ^ which 
act they knew would destroy for them all chance of com- 
mercial prosperity. They realized that they could not 
trade, with either safety or profit, if they had to carry 
their goods overland to and from the eastern States, as 
the country lying between was wild and mountainous, and 
the passes were beset with bands of savages. 

It was at this point that the feeling first arose that, if 
the Confederation could do no better than this for her 
struggling frontier colony, it would be far better to cut 
themselves off entirely from the central government and 

1 Extracts from the "Journal." Cf. Littell's "Political Transactions," Ap- 
pendix, I. 

2 Woodrow Wilson's "History of the American People," III, p. 51, for de- 
tails of this report. 



I 



KENTUCKY ENTERS THE UNION 121 

its control; and, although this idea had not yet become 
very general, it afforded a plausible basis for the agents of 
Spain to work upon. 

Having provided for another Assembly ^ upon which to 
place the responsibility for action, if anything was to be 
done, the "Second Assembly" adopted two addresses, one 
"To the Honorable General Assembly of Virginia," and 
the other "To the Inhabitants of the District of Ken- 
tucky." ^ 

The author of those two addresses cannot be positively 
ascertained, but it seems probable that in them we have 
the first work of General James Wilkinson, as their tone, 
and the extreme manner in which they are drawn up, agree 
very closely with some later work of the same nature which 
can with certainty be assigned to his pen. Although he 
was not a member of this Assembly, his talents were, by 
this time, very well recognized throughout the District, 
and Marshall thinks that the author was not a member 
of the convention.^ 

The address to the Assembly of Virginia was never de- 
livered, this task being left for the next Assembly, which 
refused to perform it. It expressed the desire for separa- 
tion from Virginia, and for admission into the Union of 
States. 

The address to the "Inhabitants of the District of Ken- 
tucky," however, is of more importance, as it was widely 
circulated and had the effect of stirring up discussion upon 
the subject of separation, and of increasing the desire to 
hasten that result. It also gives us a concise view of 

1 Littell's "Political Transactions," p. 18, and "Appendix," p. 6. 

2 Full texts given in Marshall, 1824 Ed., I, pp. 200-202, and also in Littell's 
"Political Transactions," Appendix, p. 2. 

3 Marshall, 1824 Ed., I, p. 206. 



122 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

the political and social conditions of the District at this 
time. 

"Friends and Fellow Citizens: We, your representatives, 
met in convention in consequence of your appointment, beg 
leave to address you on a subject which we consider of the 
last importance to you, to ourselves, and to unborn pos- 
terity. 

" In every case when it becomes necessary for one part 
of the community to separate from the other; duty to Al- 
mighty God and a decent respect for the opinions of man- 
kind require that the causes which impel them thereto 
should be clearly and impartially set forth. 

"We hold it as a self evident truth that the government 
is ordered for the ease and protection of the governed: 
and whenever these ends are not attained, by one form of 
government, it is the right, it is the duty, of the people to 
seek such other mode as will be likely to insure to them- 
selves and to their posterity those blessings to which, by 
nature, they are entitled. 

"In the course of our enquiries, we find that several 
laws have passed the Legislature of Virginia, which, al- 
though of a general nature, yet in their operation are 
particularly oppressive to the people of this district; and 
we also find that, from our local situation, we are deprived 
of many benefits of government which every citizen therein 
has a right to expect; as a few facts will sufl&ciently demon- 
strate. 

" I . We have no power to call out the militia, our sure 
and only defence, to oppose the wicked machinations of 
the savages, unless in case of actual invasion. 

"2. We have no executive power in the District, either 
to enforce the execution of laws, or to grant pardons to 



KENTUCKY ENTERS THE UNION 123 

objects of mercy; because such a power would be incon- 
sistent with the poHcy of the government, and contrary 
to the present constitution. 

"3. We are ignorant of the laws that are passed until 
a long time after they are enacted, and in many instances 
until they have expired: by means whereof penalties may 
be inflicted for offences never designed, and delinquents 
escape the punishment due to their crimes. 

"4. We are subjected to prosecute suits in the High 
Courts of Appeals at Richmond, under every disadvantage 
for the want of evidence, want of friends, and want of 
money. 

"5. Our money must necessarily be drawn from us, not 
only for the support of the civil government, but by in- 
dividuals who are frequently under the necessity of at- 
tending on the same. 

"6. Nor is it possible for the inhabitants of this Dis- 
trict, at so remote a distance from the seat of government, 
ever to derive equal benefits with citizens in the Eastern 
parts of the State; and this inconvenience must increase 
as our country becomes more populous. 

"7. Our commercial interest can never correspond with 
or be regulated by theirs, and in case of any invasion, the 
State of Virginia can afford us no adequate protection, 
in comparison with the advantages we might (if a separate 
State) derive from the Federal Union. 

"On maturely considering truths of such great impor- 
tance to every inhabitant of the District, with a firm per- 
suasion that we are consulting the general good of our 
infant country, we have unanimously resolved, That it is 
expedient and necessary for this District to be separated 
from Virginia and estabhshed into a sovereign, independ- 



124 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

ent State, to be known by the name of the 'Common- 
wealth of Kentucky/ and taken into union with the 
United States of America. 

*' In order to effect this purpose we have agreed on a 
petition to be presented ^ to the Legislature of Virginia at 
their next session, praying that a separation may take 
place; in which petition are fully set forth such terms as 
we thought beneficial to our infant country, and not in- 
consistent for Virginia to grant. 

"It is generally admitted that this District ought, at 
some period not far distant, to be separated from the 
government of Virginia. 

"The only question then, is, whether we are now, of 
sufficient abihty, either to fill the different offices of gov- 
ernment, or provide for its support ? In answer to the 
first part of this objection, examples have taught us, that 
sound principles and plain sense suffice for every laudable 
purpose of government; and we generally find that the 
liberty of the subject and the laws of the land, are in the 
highest reverence, at the foundation and rise of States, 
before the morals of the people have been vitiated by 
wealth and licentiousness and their understandings en- 
tangled in visionary refinements and chimerical distinc- 
tions: and as to the latter part, we have now in our power 
several valuable funds, which, if by procrastination we 
suffer to be exhausted, we shall be stripped of every re- 
source but internal taxation, and that under every disad- 
vantage : and therefore we do not hesitate to pronounce it 
as our opinion, that the present is preferable to any future 
period. 

1 The delivery of this petition was, however, to be left to the next Assembly. 
See Resolution No. 5, ante. 



KENTUCKY ENTERS THE UNION 125 

" By an act of the last session of the Assembly, we find 
that the revenue law is now fully and immediately to be 
enforced within the District, so that we shall not only pay 
a very considerable part of the tax for supporting the 
civil government of the State, but also be obliged to sup- 
port our supreme court, and every other office we need 
in the District, at our own charge; and we are of the opin- 
ion, that the additional expense of the salaries to a gover- 
nor, council, treasurer and delegates to Congress, will, 
for a number of years, be more than saved out of the 
funds before alluded to, without any additional tax on the 
people." 

Having accomplished the passage of these resolutions 
and addresses, the "Second Assembly" adjourned, and 
the people anxiously awaited the time for electing dele- 
gates to the "Third Assembly," confident that the thirty 
representatives, who were to compose it, would finally 
settle the great question of separation. 

The election came in July, and in the following August 
the new delegates arrived at Danville, among those from 
Fayette County being General James Wilkinson. This 
seems to have been his first appearance, as a member, 
in the councils of the District, though, from this time for- 
ward, he stands as their most prominent figure. 

The first business to come before the Assembly was a 
consideration of the papers and recommendations which 
the "Second Assembly" had committed to them. These 
were debated at length in the Committee of the Whole, 
and a report was delivered to the Assembly by Mr. Muter. 
The report states that Kentucky, by virtue of her isolation, 
can never hope to be properly governed while the present 
connection with Virginia is maintained, and proceeds to 



126 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S fflSTORY 

give a list of grievances, the same, in substance, as those 
in the above-quoted " Address to the People," declaring, 
at the same time, that these grievances are due, not to any 
evil intention on the part of Virginia, but to the unnatural 
and useless legal subordination of the District to the State. 
It closes thus: 

"Whereas all men are born equally free and inde- 
pendent, and have certain natural, inherent and inalien- 
able rights; among which are the enjoying and defending 
life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting prop- 
erty, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety: 
Therefore, 

''Resolved, That it is the indispensable duty of this 
convention, as they regard the prosperity and happiness 
of their constituents, themselves and posterity, to make 
application to the General Assembly, at the ensuing ses- 
sion, for an act to separate this District from the present 
government forever, on terms honorable to both and in- 
jurious to neither; in order that it may enjoy all the ad- 
vantages, privileges and immunities of a free, sovereign 
and independent republic." 

This report was unanimously adopted by the Assem- 
bly, who further proceeded to draw up and adopt two 
addresses, one to the Assembly of Virginia, and one to the 
inhabitants of the District of Kentucky. As the work of 
this convention succeeded in securing the consent of Vir- 
ginia to the proposed separation, though the conditions 
upon which it was to be granted were not fulfilled for 
years, I quote, in part, the first of these addresses. 

"Gentlemen: The subscribers, resident in the Counties 
of Jefferson, Fayette, Lincoln and Nelson, comprising the 
District of Kentucky, being chosen at free elections held 



KENTUCKY ENTERS THE UNION 127 

in these counties respectively by the freemen of the same, 
for the purpose of constituting a convention, to take into 
consideration the general state of the District, and ex- 
pressly to decide on the expediency of making application 
to your honorable body, for an act of separation — deeply 
impressed with the importance of the measure, and breath- 
ing the purest filial affection, beg leave to address you on 
this momentous occasion. 

"The settlers of this distant region, taught by the ar- 
rangements of Providence, and encouraged by the con- 
ditions of that solemn compact for which they paid the 
price of blood, to look forward to a separation from the 
Eastern part of the Commonwealth; have viewed the sub- 
ject leisurely at a distance and examined it with caution 
on its near approach: — irreconcilable as has been their 
situation to a connection with any community beyond the 
Appalachian Mountains, other than the Federal Union; 
manifold as have been the grievances flowing therefrom, 
which have grown with their growth and increased with 
their population; they have patiently waited the hour of 
redress, nor even ventured to raise their voices in their 
own cause until youth quickening into manhood, hath 
given them vigor and stability. 

"To recite minutely the causes and reasoning which have 
directed and will justify this address, would we conceive, 
be a matter of impropriety at this juncture. It would be 
preposterous for us to enter upon the support of facts and 
consequences which, we presume, are incontrovertible; 
our sequestered situation from the seat of government, 
with the intervention of a mountainous desert of two hun- 
dred miles, always dangerous, and passable only at par- 
ticular seasons, precludes every idea of a connection on 



1 28 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

republican principles. The patriots who formed our con- 
stitution, sensible of the impracticability of connecting 
permanently in a free government the extensive limits of 
the commonwealth, most wisely made provision for the 
act which we now solicit, 

"To that sacred record we appeal . . . and, by the 
authority of our constituents, after the most solemn de- 
liberation, being warned of every consequence which can 
ensue, for them, for ourselves, and for posterity unborn, 
do pray that an act may pass at the ensuing session of 
Assembly, declaring and acknowledging the sovereignty 
and independence of this District. . . ." ^ 

A comparison of this production with the one already 
quoted shows a striking similarity of style and spirit, 
which seems to justify the assumption that the author was 
the same. In this article, however, the real spirit of Wil- 
kinson is somewhat concealed, as he is addressing a body 
whose members are not supposed to be easily swayed by 
passion and extreme statements, while, in the "Address 
to the Inhabitants of the District," quoted above, he had 
allowed the intensity of his views to be clearly seen. 

In order to give more dignity and force to the "Address 
to the Virginia Assembly," the Chief Justice of the Dis- 
trict, George Muter, and the District Attorney, General 
Innis, were appointed to present it, and to offer their 
personal support toward securing its passage. They ar- 
rived at Richmond in November (1785), and laid the 
matter before the General Assembly, offering such defence 
and explanation as the case seemed to demand. 

1 " Political Beginnings of Kentucky," by John Mason Brown, Appendix II; 
Marshall's " History of Kentucky," 1882, Ed., I, pp. 210, 212; Littell's " Po- 
litical Transactions," Appendix, p. 11. 



KENTUCKY ENTERS THE UNION 129 

The Assembly received the petition with great kindness 
and Hberality, and at once passed an act which is now 
known as the "First Enabling Act." ^ It refers at first to 
the petition, and to the expediency of making such a 
change, on account of the remoteness of the better parts 
of the District from the seat of government. It then de- 
clares that, "The free male inhabitants," of each of the 
seven counties of the District, shall elect representatives 
on their "respective court days," during the next August; 
that these representatives shall meet at Danville, on the 
fourth Monday in September, and decide whether or not 
it is expedient and the will of the people to become an in- 
dependent State upon the following conditions: ^ that the 
boundary between the proposed State and the State of 
Virginia remain the same as at present; that the proposed 
State assume a proportion of the public debt of Virginia; 
that private rights and land interests within the said Dis- 
trict, derived from the laws of Virginia prior to such sepa- 
ration, remain secure under the laws of the proposed 
State; that equal taxation and equal security for the prop- 
erty of residents and nonresidents of the District be in- 
sured; that all land titles made by Virginia and surveyed 
prior to 1788 be made valid and sound; that those tracts of 
land which Virginia has retained as rewards for service, 
etc., be reserved for her use until September, 1788, and 
no longer; that the Ohio be open to the free navigation of 

1 Found in 12 Hening's "Statutes at Large," p. 37, and entitled, "An act 
concerning the erection of the District of Kentucky into an Independent State," 
passed January 6, 1786, Senate, January 10, 1786. The chief extracts from the 
proceedings of this Assembly are give in Appendix II, of Brown's "Political Be- 
ginnings of Kentucky." 

2 A reprint of these conditions will be found in Marshall, 1824 Ed., I, pp. 223- 
224. 

Kentucky — 9 



130 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

all citizens of the United States, and that disputes which 
may arise between Virginia and the proposed State con- 
cerning the meaning or execution of the foregoing articles 
be submitted to arbitration. 

The bill provides also that, in case the proposed con- 
vention shall decide in favor of separation upon these 
conditions, it shall fix a date (prior to September i, 1787), 
when Virginia's authority over the District of Kentuck) 
shall cease; but this only in case Congress shall (prior t< 
June I, 1787) relieve Virginia from her Federal obliga 
tions, relative to this District, and shall admit the latte 
as a State into the Federal Union. 

These conditions appear fair enough, but they requirec 
delay, and delay did not suit the extreme party who ha< 
controlled the last Assembly, and who were eager for th 
immediate declaration of independence, which would giv 
them a chance at pronounced leadership. Foremos 
among these was Wilkinson, and, in the elections which oc 
curred in the summer of 1786 for the "Fourth Assembly,' 
he became a candidate. He did not hesitate to express hi 
desire for an immediate declaration of independence, and 
though he roused great opposition by his extreme views 
he was elected a delegate from Fayette County, by frau( 
his enemies declared. 

In the meantime the Indians having become ver 
troublesome, two expeditions had been organized, on 
under Clark against the Wabash tribes, the other unde 
Logan against the Shawnees; and so many of the member 
of the coming convention had taken service in these expedi 
tions, that, when the day came for its assembling, "a num 
ber sufficient to proceed to business could not be had." ^ 

1 Littell's "Political Transactions," p. 21. 



KENTUCKY ENTERS THE UNION 13 1 

The minority which did assemble chose John Marshall 
(afterwards the "Great Chief Justice" of the United 
States), as their agent to present to the Virginia Assembly 
a memorial, stating their unfortunate situation, and asking 
for a modification of the conditions of separation which 
could not now be fulfilled.^ This irregular request was 
granted, and a " Second Enabling Act " ^ was passed, con- 
tinuing the assent to the separation, but requiring the 
convention to be reelected during the following August 
(1787); postponing the operation of the act of separation 
until January, 1789, and fixing July 4, 1788, as the date 
prior to which Congress should consent to receive Ken- 
tucky into the Union. 

Thus again was the object of Kentucky's desire denied 
her. She had started the struggle for independence in 
1784. It was now impossible to secure it before 1789; and 
yet the majority of the people submitted patiently, thinking 
that it was better to act slowly, rather than to violate the 
law, in order to gain the independence for which they 
longed. 

In January, 1787, the Fourth Assembly finally suc- 
ceeded in getting together its quorum, only to discover 
that it had been deprived of all authority by the change in 
the conditions which the Assembly of Virginia had just 
made. Realizing that they had no power to proceed, they 
disbanded in anger, and scattered to their respective coun- 
ties, spreading discontent and impatience throughout the 
entire District. 

Wilkinson, in particular, more boldly than ever, ad- 

1 Littell's "Political Transactions," Appendix, contains John Marshall's 
letter reporting upon the matter. 

2 Passed January 10, 1787. Text, 12 Hening's "Statutes at Large," p. 240. 



132 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

vised, "an immediate declaration of independence," re- 
gardless of the consequences. He declared that the coun- 
try was in no condition to wait; that it needed liberty, and 
was perfectly competent to maintain an independent gov- 
ernment. He appealed to the Indian outrages to which 
they were exposed without any means of defence, and did 
all in his power to break down the general and firm respect 
for law which pervaded the community. 

By degrees also rumors relative to the navigation of 
the Mississippi began to be circulated. A number of 
gentlemen in Pittsburg, calling themselves a "Committee 
of Correspondence," sent a written communication, to the 
people of Kentucky, declaring that John Jay, the Amer- 
ican Secretary of Foreign Affairs, had made a proposition 
to Don Gardoqui, the Spanish minister, to cede to Spain 
for twenty-five years, the navigation of the Mississippi 
River, in consideration of certain commercial advantages 
to be enjoyed by the Eastern States alone. 

This was at once seized upon by Wilkinson and his 
party, and converted into a charge against Congress 
whereas it was really only a proposition which had been 
made and rejected.^ Indeed, Congress had expressly or- 
dered the Secretary of Foreign AflFairs to, "stipulate both 
for the territory of the United States," as recognized in 
the treaty with England, and for the navigation of the 
Mississippi from its source to the ocean. The Spanish 

1 John Marshall wrote concerning this subject: "The negotiation which has' 
been opened with Spain for ceding the navigation of the Mississippi — a negotia- 
tion so dishonorable and injurious to America, so destructive of the natural 
rights of the western world — is warmly opposed by this country, and for this 
purpose the most pointed instructions are given to our delegates in Congress 
(i. e., Virginia). I persuade myself that this negotiation will terminate in se- 
curing instead of ceding that great point." Littell's "Political Transactions," 
Appendix VIII, p. 21. 



I 



KENTUCKY ENTERS THE UNION 133 

minister having declared that Spain would never permit 
any nation to use that river, both banks of which be- 
longed to her, Mr. Jay had reported this statement to 
Congress, and had also informed that body, "that Spain 
was ready to grant to the United States extensive and valua- 
ble commercial privileges, and that it was in her power, by 
her influence with the Barbary States and, by her connec- 
tion with France and Portugal, greatly to injure the com- 
merce of America, and to benefit that of England, but that, 
at present, the questions respecting the Mississippi and 
territorial limits prevented any commercial arrangements 
whatever." In view of which facts, he recommended a 
treaty with Spain, limited to "twenty or thirty years, and 
abandoning, during that period, all claim to the navigation 
of the Mississippi below their Southern boundary line." 
His view was based on the false idea that we would have 
no special need to use the river for the next twenty or 
thirty years. 

On receiving this warning from Pittsburg, Messrs. 
Muter, Innis, Brown and Sebastian sent out a circular 
letter^ (dated March 29, 1787), calling on the people of 
Kentucky to elect representatives to meet at Danville on 
the first Monday in May, to take action against such an 
outrage. They readily complied, but, before the dele- 
gates had assembled, the matter came to be better un- 
derstood, and the convention, without any action upon it, 
adjourned. When it became generally known that Con- 
gress had refused to accept Jay's proposition, the intense 
excitement gradually died down, although there can be lit- 

^ Full text given in (a) Littell's "Political Transactions," Appendix VIII; 
(b) Brown's "Political Beginnings of Kentucky," Appendix No. 4, and (c) 
Marshall, I, p. 259. 



134 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

tie doubt that it resulted in deepening the prejudice of 
many against a union where such a proposition could even 
be considered. This prejudice, moreover, was greatly in- 
creased by the extraordinary action of the Virginia Execu- 
tive in censuring General Clark and General Logan for the 
military expeditions against the Wabash and Shawnee In- 
dians, which they had recently conducted with the consent 
of the county lieutenants.^ It was bad enough, the Ken- 
tuckians reasoned, to be left unprotected by the parent 
State, but to be censured for necessary acts of war was 
unbearable. Why should they not, argued the more ex- 
treme of them, secure their independence, make their own 
terms with Spain concerning the navigation of the Missis- 
sippi, and remain an independent and sovereign State ^ 
For this view, an able and energetic advocate was found in 
Wilkinson. He had used all of his talents, and most of his 
money, in securing personal and political friends, and, 
when the time came for electing delegates for the Fifth As- 
sembly, which was to meet on September 17, 1787, he ap- 
peared as a candidate, and was elected. But when the 
delegates assembled at Danville, Wilkinson was missing. 
The Assembly opened its session and proceeded to consider 
the question before them (that of separation from Vir- 
ginia), quietly and with a unanimity hitherto unknown. 

Wilkinson, wishing to illustrate, by concrete example, 
the wisdom of his proposition, and also to secure money, 
of which he was greatly in need, had started upon a journey 
to New Orleans, for the purpose of trading with the Span- 
iards. For several months, nothing was heard of him, but 
when, at the end of that period, he again appeared in the 
District of Kentucky, it was in a chariot drawn by four 

1 Littell's "Political Transactions," pp. 21-25. 



KENTUCKY ENTERS THE UNION 135 

horses, with a long retinue of slaves and a curious private 
trading treaty, which gave him the right to export all the 
productions of Kentucky, free of duty, and an offer, on be- 
half of the Spanish government, of nine dollars and fifty 
cents a hundred for tobacco, for which the Kentuckians 
were then receiving only two dollars. 

He was received, by his friends, as an ambassador, who 
had, by his own private efforts, gained greater concessions 
from Spain than the whole Federal Union had been able 
to secure; ^ but his enemies, with good reason, questioned 
the honesty of such a transaction, and looked upon Wil- 
kinson as a hired agent of Spain. He had accomplished 
his design, but, in so doing, he had exposed himself to at- 
tack; and, though his tracks were so well covered ' that 
nothing could ever be proved against him, he seems to 
have gone a little farther than most men were willing to go. 

The party of which Wilkinson was leader, and upon 
which this reckless venture cast great discredit, was known 
as the Court party, on account of the fact that the leaders. 
Brown, Sebastian and Innis, were all members of the Su- 
preme Court of the District. Their scheme was, " a decla- 
ration of independence, an immediate organization of gov- 
ernment, a treaty with Spain for the navigation of the 
Mississippi, and a connection with the United States, or 
not, according to circumstances and contingencies." ^ In 

1 Marshall, 1824 Ed., I, pp. 270-283. 

2 See "Lexington Reporter," March 14, 1803. 

3 It would be grossly unjust to judge of secession plans of that generation 
by standards of later days. National patriotism, so vigorous during the Revo- 
lution, had failed to attach itself to the government under the Articles of Con- 
federation. The real enthusiasm was everywhere given to the state governments, 
which alone touched the life of the individual. See, for example, the history of 
the "Essex Junto," and their plan for an Eastern Confederacy, described in 
"Schouler," II, pp. 60 et seq. 



136 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

opposition to this party and its principles, stood the "Coun- 
try party," loyal, and determined to preserve the integrity 
of the United States by a legal and constitutional separa- 
tion, and admission into the Union, in any manner recom- 
mended by Congress. 

Meanwhile, the Fifth Assembly, having convened (Sept. 
17, 1787), had gravely considered anew the question of 
separation, and had decided unanimously that it is "ex- 
pedient for and the will of the good people of the District," 
that it should be separated from the rest of the State upon 
the terms and conditions prescribed by law. It had 
adopted a petition to Congress asking admission into the 
Union,^ and had secured, from the Virginia Legislature, 
the appointment of John Brown as the first Congressional 
delegate of the District, charging him with the delivery of 
the petition. 

The state of affairs which confronted Brown, when he 
entered upon his duties, was not calculated to increase his 
love for the Confederation. The Convention which gave 
birth to our present Constitution had just concluded its 
work and was now ready to submit it to the States for their 
approval.^ So much excitement was felt over this event, 
and so little attention was given to the Old Congress, that 
it could not collect a quorum during the entire winter; and, 
though its consent to the separation was necessary, before 
July 4th, 1788, according to the requirements of the Second 

1 Littell's "Political Transactions," p. 32. 

2 The "New Plan," as it was called, met great opposition, and especially 
from Virginia, which persisted in her refusal to "ratify," until nine States had 
already given their assent and further opposition was seen to be futile. In her 
convention, specially assembled to consider the New Federal Constitution, the 
District of Kentucky was represented by fourteen delegates — two from each of 
the seven counties. Three of them voted for the adoption, nine against it, and 
two did not vote at all. See Elliot's "Debates," 1836 Ed., Ill, p. 604. 



KENTUCKY ENTERS THE UNION 137 

Enabling Act, the question of the admission of Kentucky 
did not come up until July 3d; and even then the Old 
Congress, desiring only to be relieved from all further re- 
sponsibility, declined to act upon the petition, referring it 
to the new government which was so soon to be organized. 
This made it impossible to fulfill the second set of condi- 
tions laid down by Virginia; and Kentucky found herself, 
after more than four years of ceaseless effort, exactly where 
she had been at the beginning. 

About two weeks later (July 28, 1788), a convention 
which had been elected to form a Constitution for the 
new State, assembled at Danville.^ Brown had sent a 
communication to Samuel McDowell, its president, and 
also to Judge Muter, announcing the failure of his mission, 
in spite of his very best efforts, and openly interpreting 
the failure of Congress to act upon Kentucky's petition, as 
due to jealousy on the part of the New England States, and 
an unwillingness that any additional strength be given to 
Southern representation i^i Congress. He declared it as 
his opinion that the same cause would operate under the 
new government; and he further communicated, "in con- 
fidence" the result of certain conferences which he had 
had with the Spanish minister. He spoke of a promise of 
that minister to give particular commercial advantages to 
Kentucky, "if she will erect herself into an independent 
government; " which advantages, he declared, "can never 
be yielded to her by Spain so long as she remains a mem- 
ber of the Union." " He announced it as his decided 
opinion that Kentucky ought to declare herself independ- 

1 The original " Journal," in manuscript, of this Convention is among the 
Durrett MSS. 

2 Collins, I, pp. 21, 22. 



138 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

ent, at once, without waiting for another act from Vir- 
ginia, or for the new Federal government to be organized, 
and to admit her into the Union. 

There was great uncertainty among the members of 
the Convention as to the best course of action, under 
such discouraging circumstances, especially since the fail- 
ure of Brown's mission had made the formation of a 
State Constitution unnecessary, thereby annulling the 
only powers that had been delegated to them. The debate 
lasted several days, and was ended by the passage of 
resolutions, recommending the election of five delegates 
from each county of the District, to meet at Danville on 
the first Monday of the November following, there to 
take measures "for obtaining admission of the District, 
as a separate and independent member of the United 
States of America, and the navigation of the Missis- 
sippi . . . ; and also to form a constitutional govern- 
ment for the District." ^ 

This done, the Constitutional Convention quietly ad- 
journed to await the election of a Seventh Assembly; but 
dissatisfaction with the progress of events was becoming 
more general, and the radical element more confident of 
success. 

In the elections which followed, as in the Seventh As- 
sembly itself, we see, for the first time, a set conflict be- 
tween the Court party and the Country party; though the 
elections passed oflF quietly enough, except in Fayette 

1 Quoted in full by Marshall, 1824 Ed., I, pp. 290, 291. There are five res- 
olutions besides the one quoted here. The Durret collection contains a manu- 
script volume which is the original record of the conventions of July, 1788, 
November, 1788, July, 1789, July, 1790, and of the Constitutional Conven- 
tion of April, 1792. It is in the handwriting of Thomas Todd, afterward As- 
sociate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. 



KENTUCKY ENTERS THE UNION 139 

County, where Wilkinson presented himself as a candidate. 
The Country party was the stronger; but the Court party 
was far more energetic and unscrupulous. In Fayette 
County, Wilkinson soon saw that his chance of election 
by honest means was very small. He therefore dissembled 
his real views and associated himself with four other men 
in a joint ticket, but, as the voting proceeded and he dis- 
covered that he and his associates were falling danger- 
ously behind, he openly disavowed all disorganizing views, 
and professed himself perfectly ready to act according to 
the instructions of his constituents. This plan, together 
with his personal popularity, saved him, and he was 
elected, being the only member of his party returned from 
the county. 

In November the delegates of the Seventh Assembly 
met at Danville,^ both the Court party and the Country 
party being well represented. Wilkinson and Brown led 
the discussion. First, Wilkinson took the floor and, 
after dwelling at length upon the vast importance of 
the navigation of the Mississippi to the entire District 
and the whole West, declared that there was, "one way 
and but one of obtaining this rich prize for Kentucky, 
and that way was so guarded by laws and fortified by 
constitutions that it was difficult and dangerous of ac- 
cess; . . . that Spain had objected to granting the navi- 
gation in question to the United States;" ^ that it was 
not to be presumed that Congress would obtain it for 
Kentucky alone, or even for the entire West alone, as her 

1 The Proceedings of this Convention are pubHshed in Appendix IX of 
Brown's "PoHtical Beginnings of Kentucky." They are also quoted very ex- 
tensively by Marshall in his "History of Kentucky," 1824 Ed., I, p. 316. The 
original MS. Journal is in the Durrett collection. 

2 Marshall, 1824 Ed., I, p. 318; Butler, 1834 Ed., p. 176. 



140 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

treaties must be general. "The way to obtain it," he 
continued, "has been indicated in the former convention, 
and every gentleman present will connect it with a dec- 
laration of independence, the formation of a constitu- 
tion and the organization of a new State, which may be 
safely left to find its own way into the Union on terms 
advantageous to its own interests." He concluded with 
the suggestive remark, "There is information of the first 
importance upon this subject within the power of the As- 
sembly, which I doubt not will be equally agreeable for 
the members to hear and the gentleman who possesses it to 
communicate." ^ He glanced at Brown, and the eyes of 
the whole Assembly followed his. 

Brown at once arose and expressed himself ready to 
give such information as was desired; but said that he did 
not feel at liberty to disclose what had passed in private 
between the Spanish Minister, Mr. Gardoqui and himself, 
but that he was certain that he could safely say this much, 
that, "provided we are unanimous, everything we wish for 
is within our reach." ^ He did not mention the specific 
point about which they must be unanimous; but it was evi- 
dent that this particular body was not likely to be unani- 
mous upon any point vital to the discussion, unless some- 
thing very decided was done. 

Wilkinson therefore arose and asked permission to "read 
an essay" upon the subject of the navigation of the Mis- 
sissippi. No objection being made, the General produced 
a manuscript of some twenty sheets and began. He urged 
the natural right of the Western people to the use of this 
great highway, and pointed out the vast resources of the 

1 Collins, I, p. 270. 

2 Butler, 1834 Ed., p. 177. 



KENTUCKY ENTERS THE UNION 141 

District of Kentucky, which would be valueless without 
this means of securing a market. He recalled the general 
outcry which the people along the western waters had 
made, when Congress had threatened to abandon the navi- 
gation claim for twenty-five years, declaring that the West- 
ern people had been just on the point of cutting them- 
selves off forever from the Union on that account. He 
concluded by declaring that England stood ready to aid 
them in securing their right, in case Spain should be so 
blind to her own interests as to refuse it.^ 

Each sheet, as it was read, was handed over to Sebastian, • 
a man who was soon after proved to be a pensioner of 
Spain; and when Wilkinson had finished the essay a vote 
of thanks was extended to him. 

The logical moment for the proposing of a declaration 
of independence had now arrived; but no such suggestion 
was made, for Wilkinson and his colleagues of the Court 
party saw clearly that such a step would find no favor 
before this Convention. 

Without further action, therefore, than the adoption of 
the customary "addresses," the Seventh Assembly ad- 
journed. 

News had meanwhile reached Virginia that the action 
of the old Confederate Congress had made it impossible 
for Kentucky to fulfill the conditions of separation which 
had been laid down in the Second Enabling Act. The Vir- 
ginia Assembly therefore passed a "Third Enabling Act," ^ 

1 Marshall, 1824 Ed., I, p. 320, taken from the notes of Colonel Thomas 
Marshall. 

2 This act was passed December 29, 1788, and is entitled, "An act concern- 
ing the erection of the District of Kentucky into an Independent State." See 
Hening's "Statutes at Large," 12, p. 788. It also appears in full in the "Ken- 
tucky Gazette" for February 4, 1789. 



142 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

which arrived in Kentucky during the month of January 
(1789), showing very clearly that Virginia was perfectly 
willing to secure the regular separation of Kentucky as 
soon as possible. This act however caused general dis- 
satisfaction, by reason of two conditions which were looked 
upon as unjust and uncalled for. The first, which pro- 
posed to subject the new State "to payment of a portion of 
the domestic debt of Virginia then existing," seems fair 
enough, when we consider that a large part of this debt 
had been incurred by military expeditions on account of 
the District, and since the passage of the First Enabling 
Act; but the second had no such justification. It pro- 
posed that the new State should continue "dependent 
upon Virginia as to the time for completing the titles and 
surveys to lands given to officers and soldiers by Virginia." 
This seemed to allow only for the creation of a partially in- 
dependent State,^ and the resentment which it aroused 
was, therefore, just. 

This act provided also for an Eighth Assembly of the 
District, constituted as before, which was to meet at Dan- 
ville on the third Monday in July, 1789, decide again upon 
the general advisability of a separation from Virginia upon 
the conditions proposed, and provide for the election of a 
Ninth Convention, to frame a Constitution and organize 
the new government, in case separation should be deemed 
advisable. 

In the meantime, the "Old Confederation" with its 
manifold defects and weaknesses had given way to the 
new order of things. The new Constitution was put into 
operation, according to the plan proposed by the great con- 
vention which formed it, on March 4, 1789; and notice was 

1 Marshall, 1824 Ed., I, p. 342. 




General James Wilkinson 

From a life-size portrait by Jarvis, now in the possession of Colonel Reuben T. Durrett, of Louisville, 

Kentucky. 



KENTUCKY ENTERS THE UNION 1 43 

at once given to the District of Kentucky that no time 
would be lost in effectually protecting her from the In- 
dians, who had lately become so bold in their incursions 
that no part of the District was secure. 

On July 20 the Eighth Assembly met at Danville, and 
took up the question of separation upon the terms re- 
quired by Virginia in her Third Enabling Act, the de- 
bate opening with the consideration of the two obnoxious 
conditions. After some discussion, it was decided that a 
memorial be sent to the Virginia Assembly, protesting 
against these conditions, and asking that they be with- 
drawn, and that the terms of separation be made "equal 
to those formerly offered by Virginia, and agreed to on 
the part of the said District." ^ 

On December 18, the General Assembly of Virginia, 
having carefully considered these remonstrances, and hav- 
ing decided that they were just, passed a " Fourth Ena- 
bling Act," ^ which contained practically the same con- 
ditions as had been laid down in the first two, but which 
omitted the two provisions contained in the third, to which 
the Assembly and the people had made such vigorous ob- 
jections. It furthermore required the election of a Ninth 
Assembly to meet at Danville, on July 26, 1790, and 
decide again the question, "whether it is expedient and 

'"MS. Journal of the Assembly," Durrett collection, contains the Ayes 
(25) and the Nays (13) on this question. It also contains a full list of the mem- 
bers of the Convention, and an interesting set of rules drawn up for governing 
the meeting. One of these is quite suggestive, viz.: "That any member con- 
ducting himself indecently towards the President or any of the members in the 
Convention — shall be subject to such reproof from the chair, as the Convention 
may think proper to direct." 

2 Hening's "Statutes at Large," 12, p. 17. The act is entitled "An act 
concerning the erection of the District of Kentucky into an Independent State." 
It was passed on December 18, 1789. See also "Kentucky Gazette" for 
March 29, 1790. 



144 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

the will of the good people of the District," that Kentucky 
become a separate State upon condition that, prior to the 
first of November, in the year aforesaid, the government 
of the United States release Virginia from the Federal 
obligations arising from the District, and agree that the 
proposed State shall be admitted into the Federal Union, 
upon a certain day to be set by the Convention. 

If this convention should decide in favor of separation 
upon these conditions, it was required to make arrange- 
ments for a Tenth Assembly, which should frame a Con- 
stitution and declare what laws should be in force in the 
new State. 

Accordingly, on the appointed day, the Ninth Assembly 
met at Danville, and passed a resolution declaring their 
acceptance of the conditions laid down in the Fourth En- 
abling Act of Virginia, naming June ist, 1792, as the day 
upon which the separation should occur. It next ap- 
pointed a committee, to draw up an address to the As- 
sembly of Virginia, announcing their acceptance of the 
conditions, and desiring their aid in obtaining the admis- 
sion of the new State into the Union. ^ 

James M. Marshall then submitted a memorial address 
to "The President of the United States and to Congress," 
expressing the warmest attachment to the Federal Govern- 
ment and Constitution, stating the grounds upon which 
Kentucky had secured independence, and asking for an 
act admitting her into the Union within the time prescribed 
by Virginia." ^ Having adopted this memorial, the Con- 

1 North Carolina's sad experiences with John Sevier and the State of Frank- 
lin, was the real cause for Virginia's refusal to loosen her grasp upon Kentucky 
"until it was fully organized and ready for admission into the Union." Fiske's 
"Critical Period of Amer. Hist.," p. 202. 

2 "Kentucky Gazette," February 12 and 19, 1791. Also Marshall, 1824 



KENTUCKY ENTERS THE UNION 145 

vention concluded its work by providing for the election 
of a Tenth Assembly, to choose officers, frame a Constitu- 
tion, and decide what laws should remain in force until 
altered or set aside by the new Legislature. 

The plots against the Union, so common during the early 
part of the struggle, had now been generally abandoned, 
and, at the time of the meeting of this last Assembly on 
separation, there is found no trace of dissatisfaction with 
the Union, or of desire to remain " Independent and Sover- 
eign" for any purpose whatsoever. A letter written by 
Washington to Colonel Marshall about this time, shows 
how thoroughly the spirit of secession had been conquered 
by the new order of things. It reads: "In acknowledging 
the receipt of your letter of the eleventh of September 
(1790), I must beg you to accept my thanks for the pleas- 
ing communication which it contains of the good disposi- 
tion of the people of Kentucky toward the government of 
the United States. I never doubted but that the opera- 
tions of this government, if not prevented by prejudice or 
evil designs, would inspire the citizens of America with 
such confidence in it as effectually to do away with these 
apprehensions, which, under our former Confederation, our 
best men entertained, of divisions among ourselves or al- 
lurements from other nations. I am therefore happy to 
find that such a disposition prevails in your part of the 
country as to remove any idea of that evil which, a few 
years ago, you so much dreaded."^ 

A few weeks after this letter was written, Washington, 
in his communication to Congress, strongly recommended 

Ed., I, pp. 361-362. Also MS. Journal of the Assembly. Durrett col- 
lection. 

1 Washington's Works, edited by Sparks, X, p. 137. 
Kentucky — lo 



146 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

the adoption of Kentucky into the Union. ^ In answer, 
the Senate announced their disposition, "to concur in 
giving the requisite sanction to the admission of Kentucky 
as a distinct member of the Union;" and the House, a few 
days later, declared, "We shall bestow on this important 
subject the favorable consideration which it merits; and, 
with the national policy which ought to govern our de- 
cision, shall not fail to mingle the affectionate sentiments 
which are awakened by those expressed in behalf of our 
fellow citizens of Kentucky." ^ 

On February 4th, 1791, both branches of the National 
Legislature fulfilled this pledge,^ and, on June i, 1792, 
Kentucky was admitted into the Union of States.^ 

1 Ibid., XII, p. 13. 

2 Marshall, 1824 Ed., I, p. 367. 

3 The act admitting Kentucky is printed in " Kentucky Gazette" of March 19, 
1791. It was signed by President Washington, on February 4, 1791. 

* Text of Kentucky's first Constitution, Durrett MSS. Reprint, Marshall, 
1824 Ed., I, pp. 396-413. 



CHAPTER V 

HARMAR, WILKINSON AND ST. CLAIR 

While Kentucky is adjusting herself to the duties of 
statehood, and preparing to put her new Constitution into 
operation, we may pause for a few moments to consider 
the growth of the District during the long years of conflict 
for separation from Virginia; for which purpose, and in 
lieu of official census,^ we may conveniently make use of 
the diary of Major Erkuries Beatty, Paymaster of the 
Western Army,^ who saw fit to record his impressions of 
Kentucky during the year 1786. " In the latter end of the 
year 1779," he writes, "this whole extent of country only 
contained one hundred and seventy souls, and now they 
say there are thirty thousand in it," hastening, however, 
to add that, in his opinion, this estimate is some five thou- 
sand in excess of the truth. 

If we may venture to assume that Major Beatty's ap- 
parently conservative estimate is approximately accurate, 
and that Captain John Cowan's conclusions ^ of nine 
years earlier are equally trustworthy, we shall have a 
basis upon which to figure the rate of growth. Cowan 
fixed the total population, in 1777, at one hundred and 

1 We have a detailed census of Kentucky from 1790 to the present day. 
See Collins, II, pp. 258-271, for table up to 1870. 

2 Durrett MSS., unpublished. 

3 When the first court ever held in the region now embraced within the State 
of Kentucky was convened at Harrodsburg, in September, 1777, Captain John 
Cowan estimated the total population at igS souls. Table showing various 
elements of this population, Collins, II, 606. 

147 



148 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

ninety-eight; by 1786 it had increased to twenty-five thou- 
sand, and, when the first regular census of the District 
was taken in 1790, it showed a total population of seventy- 
three thousand six hundred and seventy-seven.^ These 
figures imply that, during the nine years from 1777 to 1786, 
immigration to Kentucky averaged about two thousand 
seven hundred a year, and, from 1786 to 1790, twelve 
thousand a year.^ 

This vast army of immigrants had begun, long before 
1786, to make use of the great Ohio river route into Ken- 
tucky, not only because it was safer and more convenient 
to travel by water, but also because it had become gener- 
ally known that the richest lands lay in the northern dis- 
tricts, and were more easily reached by the river than by 
either the old Wilderness Road, or the new road which the 
Virginia surveyors had opened up over the Cumberland 
mountains.^ 

This change of route had not escaped the savages, who, 
alarmed by the ever increasing white man's invasion of 
their hunting ground, had so persistently haunted the 
wooded banks of the Ohio, that, during all those years, 
scarcely a boat had escaped unmolested.^ 

1 By the first of June, 1792, when Kentucky was admitted to the Union, her 
population numbered 100,000 souls. 

2 Justin Winsor, in his "Westward Movement," p. 136, mentions these 
figures with a touch of skepticism. It may be argued that a considerable part 
of this increase may be accounted for by natural generation, but, to offset this, 
we have to consider the very large mortality of the District during these years 
of Indian warfare. In 1790 Judge Innis wrote to the Secretary of War, that 
the Indians alone had killed 1,500 persons during his seven years of residence 
in Kentucky. Durrett's "Kentucky Centenary," p. 45; Butler, 1834 Ed., p. 195. 

^ Winsor's "Westward Movement," p. 136. For detailed description of the 
roads to Kentucky at this early period see Durrett's "Kentucky Centenary, 
pp. 75-76. 

* Burnett's "Notes on the Northwestern Territory," p. 83. 



HARMAR, WILKINSON AND ST. CLAIR 149 

It had been the evident duty of the State of Virginia to 
do all in her power to render safe the routes of migration 
into her western possessions, but she had never been in a 
position to devote much attention to the matter, and had 
rather resented the obhgation. As soon, therefore, as the 
new Federal Constitution had been put into operation. 
Governor Randolph had taken action which was calcu- 
lated to throw this responsibility upon the National Gov- 
ernment. In June, 1789, he had issued, to the county 
lieutenants of the District of Kentucky, an order,^ direct- 
ing them to discharge all their scouts and rangers, and de- 
claring, "in cases of any future incursions of Indians, you 
will give as early information of them as possible to the 
officer commanding the Continental post on the Ohio, 
nearest the point of attack. I have communicated to the 
President the instructions now sent you, and have no 
doubt but effective measures will be taken to protect all 
the inhabitants of the frontiers." 

From the point of view of the Federal Government, it 
had been necessary for her to accept this duty, both be- 
cause the new Constitution gave her sole charge of Indian 
affairs,^ and because the Indian depredations along the 
Ohio frontier were notoriously the result of the failure of 
England to remove her troops from the Northwest posts: 
but from the point of view of the Kentucky people, such a 
change was a disaster, as the Federal troops along the Ohio 
were too few to be of any real service in the defence of so 
large a frontier. The Eighth Assembly upon separation, 
then in session, had therefore, ventured to turn aside from 
the specific object for which it had been elected, to enter a 

1 Copy of this order, Marshall, 1824 Ed., I, pp. 352-353. 

2 Section VIII, Clause 3. 



150 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

spirited protest against this policy,^ and to dispatch to the 
President a complaint of the defenceless condition of the 
frontiers. 

This complaint had been reinforced by a letter from 
General Arthur St. Clair,^ which declared, "The constant 
hostilities between the Indians who live upon the river 
Wabash, and the people of Kentucky, must necessarily be 
attended with such embarrassing circumstances to the 
Government of the Western Territory, that I am induced 
to request you will be pleased to take the matter into con- 
sideration, and give me the orders you may think proper. 

" It is not to be expected. Sir, that the Kentucky people 
will or can submit patiently to the cruelties and depre- 
dations of the savages — they are in the habit of retali- 
ation, perhaps without attending precisely to the nations 
from which the injuries are received. They will continue 
to retaliate, or they will apply to the Governor of the West- 
ern Country (through which the Indians must pass to 
attack them) for redress; if he cannot redress them (and 
in the present circumstances he cannot), they also will 
march through that country to redress themselves, and 
the Government will be laid prostrate. 

"The United States on the other hand are at peace with 
several of the nations; ^ and should the resentment of these 

1 Marshall, 1824 Ed., I, p. 353, quotes their resolution appointing a com- 
mittee, "to draw up and transmit to the executive, a remonstrance on the sub- 
ject," and "to state to his excellency, the President of Congress, the defenceless 
state of our frontiers." 

2 St. Clair had recently been appointed the first Governor of the Northwest 
Territory, in payment, it is said, for the support which, as President of Congress, 
he had given to the Ordinance of 1787. See Winsor's "Critical and Narrative 
History," VII, p. 539. Full text of letter, "Kentucky Gazette," January 2, 
1790. The letter is dated September 14, 1789. 

3 St. Clair had just completed treaties with several Indian tribes within the 



HARMAR, WILKINSON AND ST. CLAIR 151 

people fall upon any of them, which is Hkely enough to 
happen, very bad consequences may follow; for it must 
appear to them that the United States either pay no regard 
to their treaties, or that they are unable or unwilling to 
carry their engagements into effect — they will unite with 
the hostile nations, prudently preferring open war to a de- 
lusive and uncertain peace. . . . 

"The handful of troops. Sir, that are scattered in that 
country, though they may afford protection to some settle- 
ments, cannot possibly act offensively . . . 

"I have the honor to be, Sir, Your most obedient and 
most humble servant, 

"Arthur St. Clair. 

"The President of the U.S." 

This letter, together with the protest from Kentucky, 
called forth the President's message of September 16, 
1789,^ in which he suggested to Congress, "the expediency 
of making some temporary provision for calling forth the 
militia of the United States for the purposes stated in the 
Constitution, which would embrace the cases appre- 
hended by the Governor of the Western Territory," and 
it was not long before the people of Kentucky were assured 
that their cause was receiving careful attention. "It has 
been a great relief to our apprehensions for the safety of 
our brethren on the frontiers," they declared, a little later, 
in an address to Washington, "to learn, from the commu- 
nications of the Secretary of War, that their protection 
against the incursions of the Indians has occupied your 
attention." ^ 

Territory, and they were proclaimed by the President on September 29, 1789. 
Marshall, 1824 Ed., I, p. 354. 

1 Full text in "Kentucky Gazette" of January 2, 1790. 

2 "Kentucky Gazette," January 16, 1790. 



152 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

They showed, however, no disposition to trust the mat- 
ter wholly to the National Government, but began per- 
fecting and extending their local militia system,^ preparing 
to defend themselves, in case the new Federal Government 
should prove as incompetent as the old Confederacy had 
been; and these precautions were not abandoned, even 
after the receipt of a communication from the War De- 
partment, which declared that, " such measures as are 
within the power and consistent with the general duty of 
the President of the United States will be adopted for the 
protection of the frontiers." ^ 

On May 30th, 1790, Governor St. Clair arrived at Louis- 
ville, on his way to meet General Harmar and arrange an 
expedition to the Indian country, which, it was hoped, 
would check all hostility for the future.^ Their plans were 
soon settled and, toward the end of September, Harmar, 
with three hundred and twenty regulars,'* took up his 
march toward the Miami villages. In Western Pennsyl- 
vania five hundred troops had been enlisted,^ troops as 
unfit for the service as any that the land could afford. 
So impotent were they that, " the crowd of discarded, un- 
just serving men, and revolted tapsters that followed Fal- 
staff to the field of Shrewsbury," says Professor McMas- 
ter,^ "would have put it to shame." Instead of soldiers 
accustomed to bearing arms, came old men tottering on 

1 For the new Militia Law, see "Kentucky Gazette," January 30, 1790. 

2 This document, dated December 15, 1789, was in reply to the complaint 
sent to New York on September 8. It appears in full in the "Kentucky Ga- 
zette" of March 15, 1790. 

3 Marshall, 1824 Ed., I, p. 360; Burnet's "Notes on the Northwestern Ter- 
ritory," p. 93. 

* Irving's "Washington," 1875 Ed., p. 639. 

5 Burnet's "Notes on the Northwestern Territory," p. 99. 

6 "History of the People of the United States," I, p. 598. 



HARMAR, WILKINSON AND ST. CLAIR 153 

their legs, or beardless youths, nervously fingering their 
first firelocks, half of them, "too ignorant to take off a 
lock to oil it, or put in a flint so as to be of use." ^ 

At Fort Washington,^ a band of stout Kentucky volun- 
teers,^ under Colonels Hardin and Trotter, joined him, 
raising his numbers to about one thousand four hundred 
men; and the army began its march of seventeen days 
toward the Miami villages. Their advance was so slow 
that ample warning was given the Indians, who leisurely 
abandoned their towns and took refuge in the forest, where 
they planned an ambuscade, into which the invading army 
promptly blundered. Harmar, having encamped with his 
main force at the deserted Indian towns, sent Colonel 
Hardin with thirty regulars, and one hundred and fifty 
Kentucky militia ^ to follow and hunt down the fugitive 
savages. Hardin was confident that the Indians would 
not offer battle, and was explaining the reasons for this be- 
lief, when his army reached the edge of a large flat plain, 
bordered on either side by thick clusters of underbrush, 
a place where any cautious Indian fighter would have 
paused to reconnoiter.^ He, however, took no such pre- 
caution, and the surprise and panic were complete, when 
the army suddenly found itself assailed from both sides 
by bands of savage warriors. The scene of Blue Licks was 
repeated. Little Turtle, the famous Miami chief, with 
some seven hundred warriors, had planned the encounter, 
and now rose up to take advantage of the confusion of 

1 McMaster, I, p. 598; Burnet's "Notes," p. 102. 

2 On the site of Losantiville, or Cincinnati. 

3 Marshall, 1824 Ed., I, p. 362, puts theirnumberat 1,133. Burnet's "Notes," 
p. 99, says 1,000. 

* McMaster, I, p. 599; Marshall, 1824 Ed., I, p. 363. 
5 Irving's "Washington," 1875 Ed., p. 689. 



154 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

their enemies. The militia fled without firing a shot, and 
Hardin with them; ^ while the thirty regulars, under Cap- 
tain Armstrong, and Ensign Hartshorn, stood their ground 
until all, except the two officers ^ and two or three privates, 
had fallen. 

Meanwhile, the Indian villages and winter stores hav- 
ing been destroyed, General Harmar with his main army 
had begun the return march toward Fort Washington, 
(October 21, 1790). Hardin soon overtook him and 
begged permission to return with a detachment, and strike 
another blow at the enemy. It was a foolish request, and 
Harmar at first refused it, but he finally yielded, and placed 
four hundred militia at Colonel Hardin's disposal,^ With 
this army Hardin returned to the ruins of the Indian vil- 
lages, and, having profited nothing by his late disaster, he at 
once allowed his militia to scatter in pursuit of a band of 
loitering savages. The Indian leaders had expected this,^ 
and, as soon as the militia were safely out of the way, 
they suddenly assailed the little body of regulars, now left 
alone, and cut them to pieces. Not one escaped,^ and, 
when the militia, recalled from their pursuit by the noise 
of the battle, returned to give aid, it was too late. The day 
was irretrievably lost. Colonel Hardin with the shattered 
remnant of his militia, effected an escape, leaving his 
dead and wounded in the hands of the enemy, or packed 
with the fallen savages in the ford of the Maumee River, 



1 McMaster, I, p. 599. 

2 Hartshorn fell behind a log and escaped the notice of the savages, while 
Armstrong lay all night, sunk up to the neck in a neighboring swamp. But- 
ler, 1834 Ed., p. 192. 

3 McMaster, I, p. 600. 

4 Marshall, 1824 Ed., I, p. 364. 
s Butler, 1834 Ed., p. 193. 



HARMAR, WILKINSON AND ST. CLAIR 155 

where, it is said, one could cross dry shod, treading upon 
the corpses of the slain and the writhing bodies of the 
wounded.^ 

Still was Hardin undismayed. Having reached the 
main army, he again begged Harmar for men, once more 
to try his fortunes against the victorious enemy: but Har- 
mar, who had at last learned a lesson, refused, and has- 
tened to lead his army back to Fort Washington. 

The expedition excited comment, unfavorable both to 
Harmar and to Hardin, and a court-martial ^ was held, 
in which, however, both were honorably acquitted, though 
even this verdict could not wholly silence the suspicion 
that Harmar had " shown the white feather," and he 
shortly afterwards surrendered his commission.^ 

In the case of Hardin the acquittal was followed by a 
new court-martial, held at Young's tavern in Lexington, 
and, although the verdict declared, "We do unanimously 
agree that Colonel John Hardin's conduct on the said ex- 
pedition, was that of a brave and active officer and that 
we approve his conduct," "* the facts seem rather to bear 
out the statement of James Brown,'"' that, " Personal 
bravery is the only part of the character of Hardin 
which stands unimpeached. . . . When you hear," he 
adds, "that the Indians, with half or less than half the 
loss of the whites, kept the field and, by that means, pos- 
sessed themselves of the scalps and plunder, you will cer- 

1 Schouler, I, p. 154. 

2 Burnet's "Notes," p. 104. 

3 Schouler, I, p. 155. 

* An account of this hearing, with the names of the judges and witnesses, 
appears in the "Kentucky Gazette" for December 11, 1790. 

6 Brown MSS., James Brown to his brother, dated Danville, November 29, 
1790. 



156 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

tainly call it a defeat. . . . Much of the blame . . . 
will be fixed on the militia of this country whose misbe- 
havior was as much the effect of the misconduct of the 
officers as of their own want of spirit, . . ." 

There can be little doubt that this was the true state- 
ment of the case. General Harmar had, indeed, proved 
himself weak and incompetent, by yielding to the impor- 
tunities of Hardin, a subaltern, and in permitting ventures 
which his own judgment could not sanction; but the defeat 
had been due to Colonel Hardin, the commander of the 
Kentucky militia, and he should have borne a larger part 
of the blame which was so mercilessly meted out to General 
Harmar. 

The people of Kentucky, however, took no such view. 
In their minds the disasters had been due to the fact that 
an officer of the regular army had commanded the ex- 
pedition, and a petition, signed by a number of prominent 
Kentuckians, was forwarded to President Washington, 
pleading that no more regular officers be sent to command 
expeditions against an enemy of whom they knew nothing. 

Washington and Knox, his Secretary of War, carefully 
considered this unreasonable demand, and even consulted 
John Brown, the only congressional delegate of what was 
then the District of Kentucky. At this conference it was 
arranged that, in order to satisfy the people of Kentucky, 
a local board of war should be appointed in the District, 
which, in conjunction with the commander of the United 
States Army in the West, should have power to call out the 
local militia for expeditions against the Indians, and to post 
scouts at certain points throughout the Kentucky District.^ 

1 Scott, Innis, Shelby, Logan and Brown composed this board. Collins, 
I, p. 273. 



HARMAR, WILKINSON AND ST. CLAIR 157 

When General Knox announced, however, that General 
Arthur St. Clair was to be appointed commander of the 
United States Army in the West, Brown protested. He 
declared that the appointment of St. Clair would be ex- 
ceedingly distasteful to the people of Kentucky, not only 
on account of his unfortunate career during the Revolution- 
ary War, but also because of his radical views concerning 
western, affairs.^ 

But St. Clair received the appointment, in spite of 
Brown's protests, and at once began preparations for an 
expedition against the Wabash tribes. 

The Kentuckians, meanwhile, chafing under the recol- 
lection of the ill conduct of their troops during the Harmar 
campaign, determined to conduct an expedition of their 
own, in order to "wipe away the stain," and to "prove 
to the general government that expeditions can be con- 
ducted with less expense and greater success." " 

In May, 1791, a call was made, and the eight hundred 
mounted volunteers who responded were placed under 
Brigadier General Charles Scott,^ with Wilkinson as sec- 
ond in command. They marched at once toward the 
Wabash towns and, on June ist, came into their imme- 
diate neighborhood. Colonel John Hardin, with sixty 
mounted infantry and a troop of light horse under Cap- 
tain M'Cay, was detached to attack a village to the left, 
while the main body pushed on, in order of battle, toward 
a town which the guides said was just in front of them. 
Having passed a strip of woodland which had impeded 
the view, Scott found that the guides had been mistaken 

1 Butler, 1834 Ed., p. 196; Marshall, 1824 Ed., I, p. 377. 

2 Letter of James Brown, dated November 29, 1790. Brown MSS. 

3 Details of Scott expedition given in "Kentucky Gazette" of June 25, 1791. 



158 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

as to the location of the main town, and pressed on to the 
top of the next elevation, from which he could see the vil- 
lage nestling in the bottom land beside the Wabash, and 
the inhabitants embarking in canoes with the evident in- 
tention of making good their escape. Lieutenant-Colonel 
Wilkinson, hastening forward with the first battalion, 
opened fire upon the fugitives, and, "in two minutes un- 
loaded five canoes crowded with savages." 

News now came that Colonel Hardin had made a suc- 
cessful attack upon the settlements to the left, and, en- 
cumbered with prisoners though he was, had passed on 
to a still stronger village beyond. Aid was instantly dis- 
patched to him, but before it could arrive Hardin had 
carried that town also, and was marching to join the main 
army, bringing a picturesque array of fifty-two savage 
captives.^ 

The next morning Wilkinson marched, with a detach- 
ment of three hundred and fifty men,^ against a large set- 
tlement on the Eel River, and utterly destroyed it. 

By June the fourth the object of the expedition had been 
fully accomplished, and the whole army started for the fort 
at the Rapids of the Ohio, where it arrived, ten days later, 
without the loss of a single man at the enemies' hands,' 
and with only five wounded. They had killed thirty-two 
warriors, taken fifty-eight prisoners, burned a number 
of important villages, and destroyed considerable stores. 
"We sincerely lament," says the writer of the account 
in the "Kentucky Gazette," "that the weather and the 

1 Butler, 1834 Ed., p. 197, from General Scott's report. 

2 Marshall, 1824 Ed., I, p. 374. 

3 Three of our men were drowned in the White River on their return. " Ken- 
tucky Gazette," June 18, 1791. 



HARMAR, WILKINSON AND ST. CLAIR 159 

consequences it produced, rendered it impossible to carry 
terror and desolation to the head of the Wabash." 

The complete success of this expedition, together with 
the memory of General Harmar's defeat, caused the Ken- 
tuckians to look with increased disfavor upon the prep- 
arations of General St. Clair, and his call for volunteers 
secured no response from them. Not a general officer, 
and scarcely a private, offered his services, one and all 
openly avowing their preference for such desultory ex- 
peditions as Wilkinson had just conducted,^ and their 
distrust of the leader whom the Federal administration had 
appointed. A draft of one thousand Kentuckians was ac- 
cordingly made,^ and, in lieu of a general officer from the 
district, command of this unwilling band was entrusted to 
Colonel Oldham, under whom, cursing their fate, and 
ready to desert at the first opportunity, they sullenly pro- 
ceeded to Fort Washington (now Cincinnati), to join St. 
Clair's army of two thousand regulars.^ 

Their reluctance and apprehension were not diminished 
when, on October ist, they left Fort Washington, and 
began their march " to attack the most cunning of foes; yet 
led by a general, wrapped in flannels, unable to stand, 
lying in a car bolstered with pillows, surrounded with 
physic, and groaning at every jolt of the wagon." ^ As 
occasion offered itself, one band after another deserted the 
army, like rats escaping from a sinking ship, and, when the 
day of reckoning for St. Clair finally came (November 4, 
1791), but two hundred and fifty of the one thousand 



1 Marshall's "Washington," 1850 Ed., II, p. 193. 

2 Butler, 1834 Ed., p. 200. 

3 Marshall, 1824 Ed., I, p. 378; Collins, I, p. 273. 

* McMaster's "History of the People of the United States," II, p. 68. 



KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTO] 

drafted Kentuckians remained to receive the commands 
of their gallant leader, Colonel Oldham.^ 

On November 3d, St. Clair encamped his men upon 
the banks of a small creek, which he mistook for the St. 
Mary's River,^ little suspecting that the enemy was at 
hand in full force. The few remaining Kentucky militia 
were advanced a quarter of a mile beyond the creek, while, 
beyond them still, lay Captain Slough with his company 
of regulars. The main body of the army had the creek in 
front, while its " right flank was pretty well secured by the 
creek, a steep bank and Faulkner's corps; some of the 
cavalry and their pieces covered the left flank." ^ 

"I had determined," writes St. Clair,^ "to throw up a 
slight work . . . wherein to have deposited the men's 
knapsacks, and everything else that was not of absolute 
necessity . . . but they [the savages] did not permit 
me ... on the fourth, about half an hour before sun- 
rise ... an attack was made upon the militia;^ those 
gave way in a very little time and rushed into camp . . . 
which . . . they threw into considerable disorder." 

In explanation of this sudden and unexpected attack, the 
"Western World" declares ^ that one Sweezy had given 
the Indians information as to the best point of attack, and 

1 Collins, I, p. 274. 

2 St. Clair's report to the Secretary of War, dated Fort Washington, No- 
vember 9, 1791. Printed in full in " Kentucky Gazette," March 3 and ic, 1792. 

3 St. Clair's official report. Marshall, 1824 Ed., I, p. 380. 

4 Official report. 

5 The militia now constituted the farthest outpost, as Slough, soon after 
taking up his advanced position the previous night, had seen so many Indians 
moving toward the tents, that he had prudently led back his little band into the 
main camp, and reported his observations to a general officer, who thanked him 
for his vigilance, but made no use of the information. McMaster, II, p. 45. 

6 This article of the " Western World " is quoted in full in the "Palla- 
dium" of August 21, 1806. 



HARMAR, WILKINSON AND ST. CLAIR l6l 

broadly hints that Wilkinson was responsible for Sweezy's 
treachery, being eager for the defeat of the army, in 
order that "some more experienced officer, (i. e., he, 
Wilkinson) " may have " an opportunity of signalizing 
himself." 

Perhaps this is libelous, but, if it be true, Wilkinson 
had reason to be proud of his success, for the wreck of St. 
Clair's army was pitifully complete.^ Mad, disorderly 
panic followed the first gallant resistance of the regulars. 
No attempt was made either to check the enemy or to 
cover the retreat of the flying army, each man striving 
only to escape with his life. The road was soon strewn 
with loaded muskets, coats, hats and boots, everything 
which impeded the speed of the fugitives having been cast 
aside.^ So great was their haste that, in the sunlight of that 
short November day, the remains of St. Clair's recently for- 
midable army covered the twenty-nine miles to Fort Jef- 
ferson, a march which, in the advance, had occupied ten 
days.^ 

St. Clair himself, although prostrated by a severe attack 
of gout, had, at the opening of the battle, directed his 
attendants to carry him into the field of action, and there 
had given his orders with a coolness which proved his 
courage, if not his military wisdom. When it had become 
evident, however, that he could not stay the panic, he had 

1 " It was long supposed that the leader of the tribes on that terrible day was 
Little Turtle, a noted chief of the Miamis. But it is now known that they were 
led to the fight by Thayendanegea, whom the English called Joseph Brant. 
Many have supposed him to have been a half-breed; some have thought, the son 
of Sir William Johnson. There can be little doubt, however, that he was a 
Mohawk, and that his mother bore him on the banks of the Ohio River." 
McMaster, II, p. 46. 

2 Schouler, I, p. 195. 

3 McMaster, II, p. 46. 

Kentucky — 11 



1 62 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

made his escape, upon a pack horse which he could neither 
mount nor dismount without assistance.^ 

This disaster, which was even more overwhelming than 
that of Harmar,^ proved conclusively the necessity for more 
care in the selection of commanding officers for Indian 
expeditions, a lesson which the Federal Government at 
last learned, as will appear from the history of the final 
campaign against the Wabash country some eighteen 
months later. 

1 Marshall, 1824 Ed., I, p. 383. Of his army, seventy officers and seven 
hundred soldiers were killed or wounded. In a letter from St. Clair to Major 
Brown, commander of the militia of Kentucky, written a few days later, he 
laments the death of the "gallant commander Lieutenant-Colonel Oldham," 
but attributes the defeat to the desertion and bad conduct of the Kentucky 
militia, whom Oldham had led. Text of letter in "Kentucky Gazette" for 
December 10, 1791. 

2 St. Clair himself was exculpated by a committee of the House of Represen- 
tatives, appointed to inquire into the causes of failure of the expeditiqfi. Mar- 
shall's "Washington," 1850 Ed., II, p. 223. 



iqn. a 



CHAPTER VI 

ONE PHASE OF THE GENET MISSION 

The fate of the Harmar and the St. Clair expeditions, 
which had cast a gloom over the last days of conflict for 
independent statehood, and over the deliberations of the 
first Constitutional Convention of Kentucky, served also 
to chill the enthusiasm w^ith which the Kentucky people 
might otherwise have regarded the approach of the first 
day of June, 1792, the date fixed for the entrance of Ken- 
tucky into the Union. The places left vacant in many a 
household served as a perpetual reminder that the new 
Federal Government had, as yet, done nothing to convince 
the frontiersmen of its superiority over the old Confed- 
eracy which it had superseded. 

This date being passed, however, and the first elections 
having been held, the new state officials assembled in Lex- 
ington; and, as soon as the preliminary work of organiza- 
tion was completed, and the two Houses ready for busi- 
ness, a joint committee was sent to inform Isaac Shelby, 
the Governor, that they were ready to receive such com- 
munications as he might choose to make. 

At noon the next day (June 6, 1792) the Governor, 
following the custom then observed by the Federal Gov- 
ernment, presented himself before the General Assembly 
of both Houses and delivered his message in person.^ He 
then presented a copy of the message to the Speaker 

1 Text of Message, " Kentucky Gazette," June 23, 1792. 
163 



164 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

of each House, and retired, leaving the Legislature to 
begin the work of making laws for the new Common- 
wealth. 

Of interest, as showing the value of money in those re- 
mote days, is an act for compensating the members of the 
late Constitutional Convention, which provided that the 
President should receive the sum of twenty dollars; each 
member and the sergeant-at-arms, twelve dollars; the 
clerk, fifty dollars; and the doorkeeper, twelve dollars, "in 
full for all demands." ^ The real meaning of these fig- 
ures appears when we catch a glimpse of the extraordi- 
nary prices which then prevailed on the Kentucky frontier. 
Beef sold at two cents a pound; buffalo meat at one and 
one-half; and venison at one and a quarter. Butter was 
eight cents a pound, and turkeys fifteen cents apiece. Ar- 
ticles of manufacture were of course relatively high, but 
most of these were luxuries, enjoyed only by the well-to- 
do. 

While the Legislature was organizing the new State 
government,^ alarming stories of Indian depredations were 
constantly arriving from the frontier. The marauding 
bands were small, it is true, but so sudden and so secret 
were their movements that they wrought great destruc- 
tion with comparatively little loss to their own forces, and 
so skillfully were their tracks concealed that it was well- 
nigh impossible to overtake them. Pursuing parties often 

1 Equally astonishing are the salaries of public officials fixed by the Legis- 
lature at its session of November, 1793. The Governor's salary V7as to be $1,000; 
that of the Judges of the Court of Appeals, $666s; that of the Judges of 
Oyer and Terminer, $100; while the Secretary of State, the Treasurer, the Audi- 
tor, and the Attorney-General were each to receive the princely sum of $333 J. 
CoUins, I, p. 23, and II, p. 182. 

2 The "Kentucky Gazette" for June 30, 1792, gives a list of 34 Acts passed 
during the first session. 



ONE PHASE OF THE GENET MISSION 165 

found themselves attacked when they least suspected the 
presence of the enemy, and frequent and heavy losses re- 
sulted from these surprises.^ 

In May, 1792, General Wilkinson, who had taken ser- 
vice in the regular army and was commanding at Fort 
Washington, despatched Colonel John Hardin and Major 
Truman upon the dangerous mission of carrying a flag of 
truce to the hostile tribes of the Northwest. His intention 
was to persuade the savages to attend a peace conference 
at the mouth of the Miami River, but it sadly miscarried. 
Hardin and Truman, messengers of peace though they 
were, were treacherously murdered by unofficial represent- 
atives of the tribes to whom they had been sent.^ 

Faith in the possible effectiveness of peaceful negoti- 
ations was thus weakened, even in minds which still cher- 
ished the sentiment, then so common in the unexposed, 
eastern sections of the nation, that the Indian was by na- 
ture noble, and inclined to respond to generous treatment.^ 
Out of respect for this sentiment, Washington had ap- 
pointed, during the month of April, 1793, certain commis- 
sioners to reopen the question of peace with the hostile 
tribes, and, much to the disappointment of Kentucky, had 
forbidden all hostilities against them pending the negoti- 
ations.^ It was now evident, however, that such a plan of 
procedure was the vainest of delusions, and the commis- 

1 For example, the defeat of Major John Adair on November 6, 1792, at 
the camp near Fort St. Clair. Marshall, II, p. 41. 

2 These murders. Colonel Marshall ventures to hint, (" Kentucky," II, p. 42), 
were, perhaps, committed with the connivance of General Wilkinson and the 
Spanish plotters, who had never completely abandoned their secret intrigues 
with the servants of his most Catholic Majesty. 

3 Butler, p. 221, comments upon this sentiment, and Smith, pp. 314-317, 
more elaborately. 

* Burnet's "Notes on the Northwestern Territory," p. 157. 



1 66 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

sioners soon returned, announcing their mission unsuccess- 
ful.^ Nothing remained, therefore, but war. 

General Anthony Wayne, "Mad Anthony," as he was 
commonly called, had been chosen to succeed General St. 
Clair, in the conduct of the war for the defence of the fron- 
tier. Wayne's heroic career during the Revolution had 
fully proved his daring; but there was still some question 
as to his military skill and wisdom. Jefferson records that 
Washington regarded him as, "brave but nothing else," 
and Washington himself has left a written estimate, de- 
scribing him, in no very flattering terms, as, " more active 
and enterprising than judicious and cautious, no econo- 
mist . . . open to flattery, vain; easily imposed upon and 
liable to be drawn into scrapes." ^ The appointment had 
been by no means popular, as public opinion concerning 
his character corresponded very closely with that of Wash- 
ington, and the latter felt considerable anxiety lest the 
new leader should, through his rashness, bring new dis- 
credit upon the administration. The English also, re- 
garded the appointment with solicitude, but for very 
different reasons. Knowing Wayne's daring nature, they 
feared that he might be tempted into an attack upon 
British posts, and thus bring to a sudden crisis the already 
strained relations between the two nations.^ 

But the selection of James Wilkinson, as the first of 
four brigadier-generals ^ to serve in the Northwestern 
army, was even more astonishing than the appointment of 
Wayne as Commander-in-chief, for Washington must have 



1 Stille's, "Major-General Wayne and the Pennsylvania Line," p. 326. 

2 Winsor's "Westward Movement," p. 439. 

3 Ibid., p. 440. 

* Wilkinson had been made a Brigadier-General in 1792. 



ONE PHASE OF THE GENET MISSION 167 

recalled his somewhat shadowy career in Kentucky, and, 
according to Jefferson, spoke of him in cabinet meeting 
as, "brave, enterprising to excess; but [with] many un- 
approvable points in his character." 

During the months occupied by the organization of Ken- 
tucky's new government, the great European conflict 
known as the French Revolution had been causing much 
excitement in the Coast States. It will be remembered 
that the American colonies, when attempting to secure 
the aid of France in their struggle with the mother-country, 
had bound themselves to join France in any defensive 
war against England in which she might later become in- 
volved. Now, after fifteen years, the United States was 
called upon to fulfill this agreement, which she promptly 
refused to do, urging the very lame excuse, that a treaty 
made with the King of France did not bind the United 
States to give aid to the government which had destroyed 
the French Monarchy.^ To the leaders responsible for 
the conduct of American affairs, this appeared the only 
course open to the United States. Our new Federal Gov- 
ernment was not yet in thorough working order, and the 
land had by no means recovered from the effects of the 
long and exhausting struggle for independence. To en- 
gage in another war under such conditions seemed an act 
of national suicide. They had even submitted to the open 
violation of the treaty of peace on the part of England, 
who still held the Northwestern posts which she had 
pledged herself to abandon, and they felt themselves fully 
justified in refusing to rise at the call of France, even at 
the risk of offending our old allies. On the other hand, 

1 This was one line of argument adopted by Hamilton in the cabinet con- 
ference on the subject of neutrality. Cf. Schouler, I, p. 245. 



1 68 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

the Federal Government had not yet succeeded in con- 
quering the suspicion with which it was regarded by a 
large percentage of its citizens, and these, as soon as the 
neutral attitude of the administration began to show itself, 
displayed their distrust, in an open and violent French 
partizanship. 

The Kentucky people had, in addition to their natural 
attachment to France and their implacable hatred of Eng- 
land, another strong reason for desiring to enter the con- 
flict. The Spaniards, who still held Louisiana and refused 
to grant to the United States the free navigation of the 
Mississippi River, were allied with England in the war 
against France; and it was felt that, only by joining with 
the latter and crushing this dual league, was there any hope 
of opening up that natural highway, so essential to the 
prosperity and commercial life of the West. 

All over the country were springing up organizations of 
French sympathizers called "Democratic Clubs," com- 
posed of the extreme Anti-Federalists, who demanded 
alliance with France. They were modeled after the famous 
Jacobin Clubs of Europe, styled themselves the "patrons 
and protectors of the people's rights and liberties," and 
were bitterly opposed to Washington's administration, 
with regard both to foreign and domestic affairs. 

In August, 1793, one of these clubs was organized at 
Lexington, Kentucky, and among its earliest deliverances 
was a violent resolution, declaring, — "That the right of 
people on the waters of the Mississippi, to the navigation, 
is undoubted; and . . . ought to be peremptorily de- 
manded of Spain, by the Government of the United 
States." ^ Similar clubs were organized at Georgetown, 

1 Marshall, II, p. 92; Collins, I, p. 23. 



ONE PHASE OF THE GENET MISSION 169 

Paris, and other places in the State, and they were not 
backward in announcing their censure, and their contempt 
for a government, so obtuse to the most pressing needs of 
its citizens, and so deaf to the calls of duty and honor; to 
duty, because it had failed to secure the navigation of the 
Mississippi River; to honor, because it refused to go to 
war with England, at the call of France. 

Meanwhile, Edmund Charles Genet, accredited repre- 
sentative of the new French Republic, had landed at 
Charleston (April 8, 1793), and had begun enlisting sea- 
men, commissioning officers, and fitting out privateers, to 
prey upon British commerce. Upon the announcement 
of Washington's Proclamation of Neutrality (April 22, 
1793), he turned his attention to the task of exciting hatred 
and opposition against the Federal Government, his aim 
being to enlist the American Nation upon the side of 
France, whether the Federal authorities liked it or not. 

This scheme being speedily frustrated by the vigorous 
action of the Federal Administration, Genet formed a plan 
for using a promise of free navigation of the Mississippi 
River, as a lever by which to move Kentucky and the West, 
to an attack upon Spanish territory, thus forcing America 
into a war with Spain, and, in consequence, with Spain's 
ally, England. He accordingly, in November, 1793, dis- 
patched four French agents, Delpeau, LaChaise, Ma- 
thurin, and Gignoux,^ to Kentucky, to cooperate with 
Michaux, who was already on the ground, ^ in raising a 

1 McMaster, II, p. 142; Butler, p. 222. Marshall, II, p. 96, gives the names 
spelled differently. 

2 Michaux's instructions appear in the "Seventh Report of the Historical 
Manuscripts Commission," p. 221; "Annual Report of American Historical 
Association," II, 1903. For Jefferson's remarks on his mission to Kentucky, 
see " Anas " for July 5, 1793. 



I/O KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

force to attack the Spanish possessions at New Orleans and 
along the Mississippi. There was no attempt to make a 
mystery of this mission. The French agents, having in- 
structions to hold out every inducement for enlisting Ken- 
tuckians for the expedition, acted quite in the open from 
the first, and for a while success seemed assured. 

The hero, George Rogers Clark, was easily prevailed 
upon to accept the high-sounding title of, " Major-General 
in the armies of France, and Commander-in-Chief of the 
revolutionary legions on the Mississippi." Indeed, from 
the Genet correspondence recently published by the Gov- 
ernment,^ it seems probable that Clark suggested the whole 
scheme, and that Jefferson, the Secretary of State, de- 
liberately encouraged it.^ In one of his earlier reports to 
the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Genet says that, 
when he first arrived in Philadelphia, to take up the work 
of his mission, he found a letter from General Clark, offer- 
ing, " a well conceived plan, and satisfactory details, of the 
means which he could employ to make the conquest of 
Louisiana." ^ Jefferson, Genet adds, encouraged the plan, 
as he was engaged in the attempt to secure from Spain a 
port of deposit at the mouth of the Mississippi, and thought 
that such an uprising ^ might hasten matters. 

1 "Correspondence of the French Ministers of the United States, 1791-1797," 
edited by Frederick J. Turner; "Seventh Report of the Historical Manuscripts 
Commission;" "Annual Report of American Historical Association," 1903, II, 
pp. 220-221. 

2 See also Jefferson's " Anas " July 5, 1793, for account of his interview with 
Genet relative to his schemes for Kentucky and the West. 

3 " . . . un plan bien conju et des details satisfaisants sur les moyens dont il 
peut disposer pour faire la conquete de la Louisiane"; "Seventh Annual Report 
of the Historical Manuscripts Commission," IV; Correspondence of Genet, 
p. 221. 

* "Une petite irruption spontan^e des habitants de Kentukey dans la nou- 
velle Orleans." Ibid. 




George Rogers Clark 

From a life-size portrait by Matthew Harris Jouett, now in the possession of Colonel Reuben T. Durrett, 

of Louisville, Kentucky. 



ONE PHASE OF THE GENET MISSION 171 

Upon receiving his commission, Clark issued, over his 
own signature, a set of " Proposals for raising volunteers 
for the reduction of the Spanish posts on the Mississippi, 
for opening the trade of that river and giving freedom to 
all its inhabitants," etc. "All persons serving on the 
expedition," he announced, are "to be entitled to one 
thousand acres of land. Those that engage for one year 
will be entitled to two thousand acres — if they serve two 
years, or during the present war, with France, they will 
have three thousand acres, of any unappropriated land 
that may be conquered — the officers in proportion; pay, 
etc., as other French troops. All lawful plunder to be 
equally divided according to the custom of war. . . . 
Those that serve the expedition will have their choice of 
receiving their land, or one dollar per day." This docu- 
ment was printed in the " Kentucky Gazette " of Febru- 
ary 8th, 1794,^ and Clark's fame, together with these glit- 
tering promises, induced many to volunteer for the ex- 
pedition, little realizing what momentous consequences 
would result, if it were carried out, and confident that 
Clark would engage in no enterprise which he believed to 
be contrary to the best interests of his State and of his 
country. 

Their estimate of Clark's character was probably cor- 
rect. It is unfair to conclude that, because he undertook 
to lead such an expedition, he was a traitor. If we as- 
sume this attitude, we condemn a large percentage of the 
American citizens of that day. It was a time of bitter 
party feeling, so bitter, indeed, that even Washington 
did not escape charges of disloyalty, and even of personal 
dishonesty. Genet had turned the Coast States upside 

1 Reprinted from the "Sentinel" of the Northwestern Territory. 



172 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

down, with his liberty caps and his revolutionary motto. 
He had felt himself so strong that he had even dared 
openly to resist the decrees of American law, and to 
threaten to appeal from Washington to his people, if 
his demands were not speedily complied with:^ and 
Clark, in his willingness to accept a commission under 
France, stood, if not with the majority, at least among 
a very respectable minority of his fellow-citizens, and 
acted upon what he believed to be the best policy for 
his country. 

When Washington learned what Clark and his associates 
were planning, he at once notified Governor Shelby that 
he "should take those legal measures which might be 
necessary to prevent such enterprise," ^ as negotiations 
were already under way to gain for Kentucky the navi- 
gation which she so much desired; and that any rash act, 
such as the one now contemplated, would render these 
negotiations ineffective, as well as expose the participants 
therein to punishment. 

Governor Shelby's reply was to the effect that no such 
attempt had come to his knowledge, but that he would be 
particularly attentive to prevent one.^ Whether Governor 
Shelby was perfectly open and honest in this statement may 
be justly questioned. It seems impossible that he could 
have failed to discover that such an expedition was pre- 
paring, and that quite openly, for the " Kentucky Gazette" 
freely published articles calculated to encourage it and to 

1 In the "Kentucky Gazette" of September 28, 1793, appears a communica- 
tion signed John Jay and Rufus King, asking that the editor make public their 
assertion that "Mr. Genet, the French minister, said he would appeal to the 
people from certain decisions of the President." 

2 Marshall, II, p. 94. 

3 Ibid. Letters quoted. 



ONE PHASE OF THE GENET MISSION 173 

justify disobedience to the orders of the nation's constituted 
authorities. It told the people, "that they had too long 
placed an implicit dependence on the impartiality and 
virtue of the general government;" which, however, did 
not at all represent the facts, the desire to trust the Govern- 
ment, in the matter of the navigation of the Mississippi, 
never having been very apparent in Kentucky or the West. 
The Secretary of State had written (November 6, 1793), 
telling him of the departure from Philadelphia, of the four 
French agents whose duty it was to serve France by inciting 
the western settlers to defy the orders of their own govern- 
ment, and requesting that Governor Shelby would prevent 
their carrying out their designs within the State of Ken- 
tucky. Next, the Secretary of War had empowered him, 
in the name of the President, to use military force if neces- 
sary, to prevent the contemplated breach of neutrality; at 
the same time pledging the United States for payment of 
all expense incurred in so doing. The Governor of the 
Northwest Territory had sent a similar warning; ^ but all 
alike had been disregarded. 

General Wayne, however, having received full infor- 
mation of what was transpiring in Kentucky, acted with 
promptness and decision, thus forcing Governor Shelby 
to declare his position. On January 6th, 1794, he wrote 
to Shelby, enclosing a letter to the commander of the 
United States Cavalry, stationed near Lexington, directing 
him to give assistance in suppressing the expedition, in 
case Governor Shelby should request it. He also enclosed 
a letter which he had received the previous month from 
Governor St. Clair, stating the general nature of the plans 
of "certain Frenchmen," and declaring that he had duly 

1 Collins, I, p. 278. 



174 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

informed Governor Shelby of them.^ In addition Gen- 
eral Wayne wrote, "should the force now offered be 
deemed insufficient, or should more be wanted, it shall 
not be withheld upon this interesting occasion, notwith- 
standing our proximity to the combined force of the hos- 
tile Indians." 

One week later Governor Shelby made plain his attitude 
toward the matter, in a letter to the Secretary of State. 
" I have," he declared, "great doubts even if they attempt 
to carry this plan into execution (provided they manage 
the business with prudence), whether there is any legal au- 
thority to restrain or to punish them, at least before they 
have actually accomplished it." "If," he argues, "it is 
lawful for any one citizen of this State to leave it, it is 
equally so for any number of them to do it. It is also 
lawful for them to carry with them any quantity of pro- 
visions, arms and ammunition. ... If the act is law- 
ful in itself there is nothing but the particular inten- 
tion . . . that can possibly make it unlawful, — but I 
know of no law which inflicts a punishment on intention 
only . . . ." ^ Then, in ardent language, he declined to 
stretch his constitutional powers, in order to oppose the 
plans and wishes of his friends, against an enemy and 
a tyrant, "a prince who openly withholds from us an 
invaluable right, and who secretly instigates against us a 
most savage and cruel enemy." 

This letter convinced the President that the Governor 
of Kentucky was not likely to take any steps toward pre- 
venting the contemplated breach of the peace with Spain. 
He therefore wisely took the matter into his own hands 

1 Texts of these three letters given in Marshall, II, pp. 102-103. 

2 Marshall, II, pp. 105-106 for text. 



ONE PHASE OF THE GENET MISSION 175 

and (March 24, 1794), issued a proclamation ^ declaring: 
"Whereas I have received information that certain per- 
sons in violation of the laws, have presumed, under color 
of a foreign authority, to enlist citizens of the United States 
and others within the State of Kentucky, and have there 
assembled an armed force for the purpose of invading 
and plundering the territory of a nation at peace with 
the said United States, ... I have therefore thought 
proper to issue this proclamation, hereby solemnly warn- 
ing every person not authorized by the laws, against en- 
listing any citizen or citizens of the United States, or levy- 
ing troops or assembling any persons within the United 
States for the purpose aforesaid, or proceeding in any 
manner to the execution thereof, as they will answer the 
same at their peril." 

Similar wholesome advice having been given to those 
contemplating enlistment, "for such unlawful purposes," 
Washington directed General Wayne to "establish a 
strong military post at Fort Massac on the Ohio, and 
prevent b}^ force, if necessary, the descent of any hostile 
party down that river." 

In the meantime Genet's recall ^ had been diplomat- 
ically requested, and a sudden change in French affairs 
had thrown his friends, the Girondists, out of power, 
leaving him without support. Knowing that the fiends, 
who had succeeded to the leadership in France, had dis- 
avowed his acts, and would probably behead him if he 
should return, Genet wisely withdrew from public life, and, 
having married the daughter of Governor Clinton of 
New York, settled down to a life of ease and comfort. 

1 Durrett MSS. 

2 His successor, Fauchet, appeared in February, 1794. 



176 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

Little was heard of him until his death, in 1836, when 
people were interested to look back through happy years 
of peace, and recall the stormy days of the neutrality 
conflict of 1793. 

The prompt and vigorous action of the President and 
the fall of Genet, the genius of the whole mad movement, 
completely wrecked the hopes of Clark and his followers. 
The "Revolutionary legions on the Mississippi River" 
were quickly disbanded, and citizen La Chaise announced 
to the Lexington Democratic Society that, "Causes un- 
foreseen had put a stop to the march of two thousand 
brave Kentuckians, who were about to go and put an 
end to the Spanish despotism on the Mississippi; where 
Frenchmen and Kentuckians, united under the banner of 
France, might have made one nation, the happiest in the 
world, so perfect was their sympathy." ^ 

While the foreign relations of Kentucky, as being a 
byplay of the foreign relations of the United States, were 
thus creating great excitement, her domestic affairs were 
arousing almost equal interest. Chief among the latter, 
was still the question of General Wayne and the savage 
tribes of the Northwest. Rumors had become current, 
at the opening of the new year, that the Indians would 
make peace, and that a campaign would be unnecessary. 
This idea was by no means popular in Kentucky, where 
the people were anxious for an opportunity to avenge the 
injuries already received; while those who wished to 
plunge the United States into war with England, saw, in 
this expedition, a chance to accomplish their ends. Still 
others hoped by it to discountenance the use of regular 
troops, in case the expedition should turn out disastrously, 
1 Marshall, II, p. 120. 



ONE PHASE OF THE GENET MISSION 177 

to say nothing of another defeat to lay to the credit of an 
administration, which a large part of the Kentucky people 
regarded with undisguised hatred. 

All idea of a bloodless peace was, however, soon dis- 
pelled by the reappearance, in various parts of the State, of 
parties of Indians, stealing horses, killing travelers, and 
burning cabins. The State authorities could offer little 
resistance, nor did the activity of individual citizens ac- 
complish much of a decisive character, and speculation 
was rife as to how General Wayne would use the author- 
ity given him by the Federal Government. The question 
was soon answered. Wayne called for volunteers from 
Kentucky, and sixteen hundred men, under the command 
of General Charles Scott, at once marched to join his 
army, already consisting of about that number. 

The British authorities in Canada were alarmed at the 
news of Wayne's preparations, as it was rumored that he 
was not averse to the idea of paying a hostile visit to some 
of their posts within the limits of American territory.^ 
This was indeed true, and for the best of reasons. From 
prisoners taken during the spring, Wayne had learned 
that the British commanders were giving the Indians every 
possible aid and encouragement, short of actual participa- 
tion in their expeditions, and he was inclined to doubt 
whether they refused even that assistance. He knev/ that 
Simcoe, acting under orders from Lord Dorchester, had 
recently constructed a new fort at the rapids of the Miami, 
and that Dorchester himself had, early in April, 1794, 
openly predicted war between the United States and 
England, before the close of the year.^ In view of this 

1 Winsor's "Westward Movement," p. 453. 

2 Schouler, I, p. 276. 

Kentucky — 12 



178 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

advance, into what was confessedly American territory, 
Secretary Knox had instructed Wayne: "If, in the course 
of your operations against the Indian enemy, it should be- 
come necessary to dislodge the party (the English garrison 
at the rapids of the Miami), you are hereby authorized, in 
the name of the President of the United States, to do it." ^ 

Thus was Wayne, the "Mad Anthony" of former years, 
given discretionary power which placed in his hands the 
choice of peace or war with England; for had he ven 
tured to attack the fort at the Miami rapids, in all proba 
bility Jay's treaty would never have been signed, and our 
second war with England would have taken place as early 
as 1794. 

On the twenty-sixth of July, General Scott and his 
detachment of Kentucky volunteers entered Wayne's camp 
at Fort Greeneville,^ and, two days later, the army took an 
obscure path toward Fort Recovery. Wayne's plan was 
to hasten on from the latter point to the mouth of the St. 
Mary's River, and to surprise the important Indian vil- 
lages clustered there; but his efforts were abortive. A 
worthless Kentucky volunteer, named Newman, deserted, 
and revealed the plans to the Indians, who were thus 
enabled to leave their villages before Wayne's arrival,^ and 
to retire to a point at the foot of the rapids of the Miami, 
under the very guns of the new British fort. 

Wayne therefore pushed on up the river, to the mouth 
of the Au Glaize, where he constructed a fort, called very 
appropriately Fort Defiance,^ on account of its proximity 

1 Stille's "Major-General Wayne and the Pennsylvania Line," p. 329. 

2 Marshall, II, p. 136; Collins, I, p. 24. 

3 Burnet's "Notes on the Northwestern Territory," p. 169. 

4 The fort was constructed August 9, 1794. For plan of fortifications see 
Winsor's "Narrative and Critical History," VII, p. 452. 



1 



ONE PHASE OF THE GENET MISSION 179 

to the British fort at the Rapids. From this point he 
sent his final overtures of peace to the savages, who agreed 
to treat, in case Wayne would promise to remain where 
he was for ten days. As their object was evidently to gain 
time for gathering their allies together, and as Miller, who 
bore Wayne's proposals of peace, declared that the savages 
were already tricked out in full war regalia, Wayne re- 
sumed his march toward the British fort. The distrust 
which had marked his appointment as Major General 
had now completely disappeared, and the army, regulars 
and volunteers alike, felt the security and confidence which 
comes from the knowledge that its commander is both 
competent and watchful. 

On August 19th the army halted to construct a tempo- 
rary post for the reception of the stores and extra baggage;^ 
and the next morning at eight o'clock resumed the advance, 
one brigade of Kentucky volunteers on the left under 
Brigadier General Todd; and the other in the rear under 
Brigadier General Barbee. A select battalion of the Ken- 
tucky volunteers, commanded by Major Price, moved in 
front of " the Legion," so as to give timely notice to form 
in case of action," ^ as it was as yet uncertain whether the 
Indians would decide for peace or war. 

They had advanced thus about five miles when Major 
Price's battahon suddenly received a severe fire from the 
enemy, "posted in a thick brushwood encumbered with 
fallen timber, the effect of a hurricane." ^ Price instantly 
ordered a retreat, which was made with such precipita- 
tion as to carry the front guard of "the Legion" with it. 

1 Burnet's "Notes on the Northwestern Territory," p. 172. 

2 General Wayne's report to the Secretary of War. Stille's "Major-General 
Wayne and the Pennsylvania Line," pp. 331-334 for full text. 

3 Samuel L. Metcalf' s "Indian Wars of the West," p. 158. 



l8o KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

These in turn rushed into Captain Lewis' company of 
Hght infantry on the left, and threw them into confusion. 
It began to look as if the terror of the hidden savages had 
put an end, in a moment, to all confidence and discipline; 
but Captain Lewis rallied his men, after a retreat of forty 
yards, and advanced to the side of the right, which had 
stood its ground. Captain Springer's battalion of riflemen 
joined them, and the charge was sounded,^ "the Legion" 
advancing in two lines, formed principally in the region of 
the fallen timbers, which extended for miles on Wayne's 
left. " I soon discovered," wrote Wayne, in his official re- 
port,^ " from the weight of the fire and the extent of their 
line, that the enemy were in full force in front, in posses-, 
sion of their favorite ground, and endeavoring to turn our 
left flank. I therefore gave orders for the second line to 
advance to support the first, and directed Major-General 
Scott to gain and turn the right flank of the savages with 
the whole of the mounted volunteers." 

While the Kentucky troops were using every exertion to 
accomplish this maneuver, "the Legion" advanced "with 
trailed arms," roused the savages from their coverts at the 
point of the bayonet, and drove them in utter rout. Ere 
the mounted volunteers reached the point assigned to 
them, the day was won, and the enemy "dispersed with 
terror and dismay, leaving our victorious army in full 
and quiet possession of the field of battle, which termi- 
nated under the influence of the guns of the British 
garrison." 

In signaling out the heroes of this battle of Fallen Tim- 

1 "A Journal of General Wayne's Campaign." Durrett MSS., unpublished. 
It gives a list of the daily occurrences, and is unsigned. 

2 Stille's "Major-General Wayne," p. 332, for text. 



ONE PHASE OF THE GENET MISSION l8l 

bers, as history has learned to call it, Wayne, in his official 
report ^ gives the first place to " Brigadier-General Wilkin- 
son . . . whose brave example inspired the troops." Of 
the Kentucky volunteers he writes, "I never discovered 
more true spirit and anxiety for action than appeared to 
pervade the whole of the mounted volunteers, and I am 
well persuaded that, had the enemy maintained their 
favorite ground for one-half hour longer, they would have 
most severely felt the prowess of that corps." 

The Indians, thus disposed of, Wayne proceeded to 
reconnoiter the British fort, suspecting that it might 
have offered shelter to some of the refugees; but found 
no sign of any attempt to offer them succor.' There was 
abundant evidence, however, that the British had not only 
furnished the savages with ammunition, but had actually 
served with them in the battle.^ This close inspection 
angered the British commander, Major Campbell, who 
dispatched a curt note to Wayne declaring that he was 
"surprised to see an American army so far advanced in 
this country," ^ and demanding to know how they had the 
assurance to encamp under the mouths of his Majesty's 

1 Wayne places the number of the enemy at about 2,000 and the number of 
his own troops actually engaged at about 900. The "Anonymous Journal" of 
the expedition (Durrett MSS.) gives the number of the enemy as about 1,500, 
"one-third of which are supposed to be Canadians." 

2 Winsor's "Westward Movement," p. 458; Burnet's "Notes on the North- 
western Territory," p. 176. 

3 "The loss of the enemy was more than double that of the Federal army. 
The woods were strewed for a considerable distance with the dead bodies of the 
Indians and their white auxiliaries, the latter armed with British muskets and 
bayonets." Wayne's "Official Report "; Stille's "Wayne," p. 333; see Burnet's 
"Notes on the Northwestern Territory," pp. 179-182 (note), for evidence 
elicited from prisoners taken by Wayne before and after the battle, relative to 
the extent of the British aid, etc. 

* " Journal of General Wayne's Campaign; " Durrett MSS. 



iSz KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

cannon. To which Wayne rephed ^ with spirit, "that the 
affair of yesterday might well inform him why this army: 
was encamped in its present position, and had the flying 
savages taken shelter under the walls of the fort, his 
Majesty's cannons should not have protected them." 
He then, in his turn, inquired why the British fort had 
been erected upon territory recognized as American prop- 
erty, and demanded its surrender. Campbell declined to 
comply, without orders from his superiors; but gave warn- 
ing that, if the insults to the British flag continued, and 
the Americans came within range of his guns, he would 
fire upon them. Both commanders, however, recognized 
the fact that an attack from either side would mean the 
instant breaking off of negotiations between the two na- 
tions, followed, probably, by the speedy declaration of 
war; and so they managed to keep the peace, in spite of 
the Kentucky volunteers, who showed their hatred of the 
British by firing their rifles within range of the fort, though 
not venturing to turn them against it.^ 

For three days and nights, Wayne's army remained 
"on the banks of the Miami in front of the field of battle; 
during which time all the houses and cornfields were con- 
sumed and destroyed for a considerable distance, both 
above and below Fort Miami, as well as within pistol shot 
of that garrison, who were compelled to remain tacit 
spectators of this general devastation and conflagration." ^ 

• 1 The correspondence is quoted in Burnet's " Notes on the Northwestern 
Territory," pp. 176-179, five letters being reproduced in full. 

2 " Journal of General Wayne's Campaign; " Durrett MSS. 

3 Wayne's "Official Report;" Stille's "Major-General Wayne and the Penn- 
sylvania Line," p. 334. "We have destroyed all the property within 100 yards 
of the Garrison. The volunteers were sent down eight miles below the fort and 
have destroyed and burnt all the possessions belonging to the Canadians and 



ONE PHASE OF THE GENET MISSION 183 

They then retired to Fort Defiance where, apparently, 
mihtary discipline was temporarily relaxed, in order to 
allow a celebration in honor of the victory, as an anony- 
mous journal ^ of the campaign has this interesting entry 
for August 27th: 

"The quartermaster-General will issue one gill of whis- 
key to every man belonging to the Federal Army (this 
morning), as a small compensation for the fatigues they 
have undergone for several days past, . . ." 

Wayne supposed that another engagement would be 
necessary before the Indians could be brought to the point 
of signing a treaty, and so, after spending some time in 
strengthening the defences at Fort Defiance, he proceeded 
up the River Miami to the mouth of the St. Mary's, where 
he arrived on September 17th. Here he began the con- 
struction of a fort, to be called Fort Wayne, the volunteers 
consenting to work on it only upon condition of receiving 
" three gills of whiskey per man per day," ^ the result of 
which unmilitary bargain appears in the entry for the next 
day (October 7th): "The Volunteers are soon tired of work, 
and have refused to labor any longer; they have stolen 
and killed 17 beeves in the course of these two days past." 

Such being the conduct of the mounted volunteers, it 
does not astonish us to learn that, when news came, a few 
days later, that Girty and McKee, Brandt, Little Turtle, 
Simcoe, and other leading counsellors of the Northwestern 
tribes,^ were gathering at the mouth of the Detroit River, 
eager to begin negotiations for peace, Wayne ordered "the 

savages." Entry of August 22, 1794, in a "Journal of General Wayne's Cam- 
paign;" Durrett MSS. 

1 "A Journal of General Wayne's Campaign;" Durrett MSS. 

2 Ibid. 

3 Burnet's "Notes on the Northwestern Territory," p. 183. 



184 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

mounted volunteers of Kentucky marched off for Greene- 
ville, to be mustered and dismissed . . . there being no 
further service" for them.^ 

On October 15th, they returned to their homes, flushed 
with the glory of a successful campaign, and fully con- 
vinced that regulars were not so bad a source of defence 
for the frontier as they had supposed. 

General Wayne and his regulars retired to Fort Greene- 
ville for the winter, and entered upon the long and tedious 
negotiations which finally resulted in the treaty of that 
name ^ (August 3, 1795), by which the Northwestern 
tribes surrendered all claims south of the Ohio River. ^ 

1 " Journal of General Wayne's Campaign; " Durrett MSS. 

2 Full details of the negotiations, Burnet's "Notes on the Northwestern Ter- 
ritory," Chs. 10-12. 

3 Butler, p. 239. 



CHAPTER VII 

CONFLICTS OVER THE COMMERCIAL HIGHWAY OF THE WEST 

The anti-federal sentiment in Kentucky, which had 
been pronounced from the first, had, as we have seen, 
been measurably weakened by the successful termination 
of Wayne's expedition against the Indian country, as that 
expedition had shown not only the good intention, but 
the admirable efficiency, of the new government. Two 
serious obstacles, however, still stood in the way of the 
creation of a strong and loyal feeling for the central gov- 
ernment. As long as the British were allowed to keep 
possession of the military posts in the Northwest, and as 
long as Spain was permitted to impede the progress of the 
West, by interfering with the free use of the Mississippi 
River, so long might the Federal Government expect 
unstinted abuse from the Kentucky people. She might 
achieve limitless glory and success, in other directions, but 
these were the questions which concerned the daily life 
and present safety of Kentucky, and Kentucky's estimate 
of the government depended, in the last analysis, upon her 
solution of them. The satisfactory adjustment of these 
questions was, indeed, a pretty fair test of the govern- 
ment's efficiency, for England was not inclined to treat 
her treaty obligations with any great consideration, being 
well aware that the United States had also failed to 
carry out certain, not less important, features of the treaty. 
Spain also felt that she had been unfairly dealt with, as 

i8s 



1 86 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

England and the United States had agreed upon a secret 
clause in the treaty, providing that the Yazoo Creek 
should be the Northern boundary of West Florida, in case 
England should succeed in holding it, but the thirty-first 
parallel in case West Florida should go to Spain. ^ Flis 
Catholic Majesty was, therefore, in no mood to grant con- 
cessions to the new republic, more especially as he still 
hoped to use his control over the Mississippi River as a 
lever to cut oflF the western settlements from the Union, 
and to annex them to his own vast dominions in America. 
Of these two matters, the question of the free naviga- 
tion of the Mississippi was of much the greater import- 
ance to Kentucky, especially after Wayne's victory had 
checked the Indian hostilities along her borders. The fact, 
therefore, that the Federal Government found it necessary 
to arrange affairs with England first, was exceedingly dis- 
tasteful to the Kentuckians. They felt that a war against 
Great Britain would open to them the opportunity of 
forcibly assuming control of the Mississippi; while a war 
with France, which seemed the alternative, had not this 
attraction. The enthusiasm with which Genet's agents 
had been received in the western country, the organiza- 
tion of the Democratic clubs, and the creation of George 
Rogers Clark's " Revolutionary Legions on the Missis- 
sippi," had all indicated this feeling. There were few of 
the more reputable sort, it is true, who had been willing 
to go the length of entirely supporting Genet; but his 
actions had been disavowed by France, and, under the 
wise management of his successor, Fauchet, French en- 
thusiasm had reawakened, and, with it, an intensified 
hatred of the British. 

1 Fiske's "Critical Period of American History," pp. 33, 208. 



COMMERCIAL HIGHWAY OF THE WEST 187 

Under these conditions, the wise pohcy for England 
would have been to conciliate America, but England has 
never known much about conciliation. As she saw the 
enthusiasm for France reasserting itself throughout the 
States, her natural conclusion was that these two countries 
were preparing to form another alliance against her, and, 
as if to show how little she cared for such an alliance, she 
at once began a course of aggression against our commerce, 
which daily added strength to the French party in America, 
and soon brought us to a point where a declaration of 
war against her seemed almost inevitable. This prospect 
was most pleasing to the people of Kentucky. Their 
consternation and anger were, therefore, intense, when 
news came that Washington had determined, if possible, 
to avert the war, by sending an envoy to England, for the 
purpose of attempting to negotiate a treaty; and this anger 
was heightened into rage, when the name of the envoy 
was made known. 

Chief Justice John Jay was regarded by Kentuckians 
as an arch conspirator against the interest of the western 
country. They had never forgotten the proposition, made 
by him in the summer of 1785, to concede to Spain, for a 
period of twenty-five years,^ the control of the Mississippi 
River, in return for certain commercial concessions which 
would have benefited the Eastern States alone, and his ap- 
pointment was regarded in Kentucky as a direct, and de- 
liberate insult from the Federal Government. On May 24, 
1794, before Jay was halfway across the Atlantic, a large 

1 The object of this, wrote Monroe to Governor Henry of Virginia, "is to' 
break up the settlements on the western waters . . . so as to throw the weight 
of the population eastward and keep it there, to appreciate the vacant lands in 
New York and Massachusetts," (Quoted in Dixon's "Missouri Compromise and 
its Repeal," p. 38). 



1 88 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

public meeting was held at Lexington, representing various 
parts of the State, and bent upon expressing the indignation 
of the Commonwealth. After an impassioned discussion, 
a set of resolutions was drawn up and delivered to the 
" Kentucky Gazette " for publication.^ 

Going straight to the point upon which the greatest 
interest was felt, these resolutions read as though Jay had 
been sent out with the express purpose of resigning all 
claims to the control of the Mississippi. They declare, in 
the first section, 

"That the inhabitants West of the Appalachian Moun- 
tains are entitled by nature and by stipulation to the free 
and undisturbed navigation of the River Mississippi. 

"That we have a right to expect and demand that Spain 
should be compelled immediately to acknowledg^e our 
right, or that an end be put to all negotiations on that sub- 
ject. 

"That the injuries and insults done and offered by 
Great Britain to America call loudly for redress, and that 
we will to the utmost of our abilities support the General 
Government in any attempt to obtain redress. 

"That the recent appointment of the enemy of the West- 
ern Country to negotiate with that nation, and the tame 
submission of the General Government when we alone 
were injured by Great Britain, make it highly necessary 
that we should at this time state our just demands to the 
President and Congress." ^ 

The same number of the " Gazette " reports, with evi- 
dent satisfaction, certain overt insults offered to the envoy 

1 Full text of the Resolutions in "Kentucky Gazette," May 31, 1794. 

2 For an impassioned statement of the causes of this hatred of Jay in Ken- 
tucky Cf. "Kentucky Gazette," January 25, 1794; also February 8, 1794. See 
also Littell's "Political Transactions," Ch. IV. 



COMMERCIAL HIGHWAY OF THE WEST 189 

in Lexington, beginning the account with the following 
poetic effusion: 

" Suppose you had a wound and one had show'd 
An herb which you apply'd but found no good, 
Would you grow fond of this, increase your pain 
And use the poisonous medicine again ? 

"The late appointment of John Jay as envoy extraor- 
dinary to the Court of London, brought so strongly to 
the recollection of the people of this country his former 
iniquitous attempt to barter away their most valuable 
right, that they could not refrain from openly testifying 
their abhorrence of the man whose appointment at this 
critical period of their affairs they consider as tragically 
ominous. Although they have not forgotten, nor even 
faintly remembered, his former act of treason against them, 
yet they hoped from the office he filled, he was in as 
harmless a situation as he could be placed, and that no 
effort of power or policy could drag him forward so long 
as he held this office,^ and set him once more to chaffer- 
ing with our rights. With these impressions, a number of 
respectable citizens of this place and its vicinity, on Satur- 
day last (May 14), ordered a likeness of this evil genius of 
Western America to be [made] which was soon well exe- 
cuted. At the appointed hour he was ushered forth from 
a barber's shop, amidst the shouts of the people, dressed 
in a courtly manner, and placed erect on the platform of 
the pillory. In his right hand he held uplifted, a rod of 
iron. In his left he held extended Swift's late speech in 

1 This expression indicates how little importance was attached to the ofi&ce 
of Chief Justice of the United States, before the days of John Marshall, "the 
Great Chief Justice." 



190 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

Congress on the subject of British depredation. On one 
side of which was written: 

' N emo repente fuit turpissimus.' — Juv., 'Sat.,' 2, V, p. 33. 

'No man e'er reached the heights of vice at first.' 
"And on the other: 

'Non deficit alter.' — ^Virg., ' JEn.,' 6. 

'A second is not wanting.' 

" About his neck was suspended by a hempen string, 
'Adam's defence of the American Constitution'; on the 
cover of which was written : 

' Scribere jusstt aurum.' — Ov., 'Ep.' 

'Gold bade me write.' 

" After exhibiting him in this condition for some time, he 
was ordered to be guillotined, which was soon dexterously 
executed, and a flame instantly applied to him, which, 
finding its way to a quantity of powder which was lodged 
in his body, produced such an explosion that after it there 
was scarcely to be found a particle of the disjecti membra 
Plenipo." ^ 

These are but examples of the insults which were heaped 
upon the name of the noble envoy, by the people of Ken- 
tucky, even before he had reached the scene of his diplo- 
matic mission. They had not waited to discover what sort 
of a treaty he would propose; it was enough for them to 
know that, if the mission should prove successful, a French 
alliance and a war against England would be averted. 
They did not stop to consider that one point, which Jay's 
instructions required of him, was to secure the surrender 
of the Northwest posts; their sole idea being that, as the 
enemy of the West, he could be depended upon to negotiate 
a treaty which would injure them. 

1 "Kentucky Gazette," May 31, 1794. 



COMMERCIAL HIGHWAY OF THE WEST 191 

Meanwhile Jay was exerting all his faculties to secure 
the utmost concessions from England. His success, though 
not perfect, satisfied Washington and the friends of the ad- 
ministration, and the Senate, after making a few changes 
which England at once accepted, ratified the treaty. 
Washington had carefully withheld its contents from the 
public, having heard rumors that the British ministry had 
renewed its irritating aggressions upon our commerce, even 
while the treaty was in process of ratification; but the mis- 
guided zeal of a Southern Senator made public the text.^ 
It was printed, in pamphlet form, by Benjamin Franklin 
Bache, editor of the "Aurora," and was at once copied by 
the newspapers and spread broadcast over the country. 
Then the attacks, which had been based upon its probable 
contents, began in earnest, upon its actual provisions. 

The "Kentucky Gazette" of August i, 1795, contained 
the full text of the treaty; and when it became known 
that Humphrey Marshall, one of Kentucky's Senators, had 
dared to vote for its ratification, his action was regarded, 
among his constituency, as a gross violation of duty, and 
an attempt was made, at the succeeding session of the 
Kentucky Legislature, to instruct him by name to oppose 
it, should it again come before the Senate. This instruc- 
tion was, after some discussion, made slightly less insult- 
ing by declaring that both the Kentucky Senators should 
oppose the treaty at any subsequent opportunity. How- 
ever, as Mr. Marshall Vv^rites in his History, the acceptance 
by England of the amendment^ which the Senate had pro- 
posed in the treaty, made it unnecessary for the Senate 
again to act upon it, which fact, he curtly explains,^ " saved 

1 Schouler, I, p. 295; McMaster, II, p. 216. 
3 "History of Kentucky," II, p. 172. 



192 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

the erratic Senator from another offence : ^ . . . for certain 
it is, that with the impressions, under the influence of which 
he acted, he would have disobeyed the instructions." ^ 

Marshall's stand was one which required the utmost 
courage. He stood alone among his fellow-Kentuckians of 
prominence, "the only advocate in this State," as a hostile 
antagonist declared, "of that most infamous production." '^ 
And yet he was right, and his numerous antagonists wrong. 
It would be hard to find a serious student of our his- 
tory, at the present day, who would deny that Jay's 
Treaty, though by no means perfect, was the best which 
could have been hoped for, and was, moreover, of great 
advantage to the country at large, and to Kentucky in 
particular. In the first place, it enabled the government 
honorably to avoid a war with Great Britain, which would 
have brought about the renewed organization of the hostile 
Indian tribes, for massacre and plunder along the Ken- 
tucky frontier: and secondly, it provided for the removal, 
although the too leisurely removal, of British "troops and 
garrisons, from all posts and places within the boundary 
lines assigned by the treaty of peace to the United States," 
including, of course, those ancient sources of Kentucky's 

1 Marshall's views on the treaty are fully set forth in a series of articles pub- 
lished in the "Kentucky Gazette," beginning in September, 1795, and running 
well into the next year. These articles, with the replies called forth by them, 
constitute the most elaborate debate which had yet appeared in the newspapers 
of the commonwealth. They show how deeply interested, in the details of this 
treaty, were the inhabitants of the Western country. 

2 "Kentucky Gazette," October 3, 1795, contains the resolutions of a Mer- 
cer County mass meeting, declaring that Marshall had, "betrayed the trust re- 
posed in him by voting for the conditional ratification of the treaty," and sug- 
gesting that the Legislature instruct the Kentucky members of Congress to 
propose an amendment to the Federal Constitution, making it lawful for two- 
thirds of a State Senate to recall the United States Senators at any time. 

3 "Kentucky Gazette," October 10, 1795. 



COMMERCIAL HIGHWAY OF THE WEST 193 

misery, the Northwest posts. June, 1796, was assigned 
as the date, on or before which these removals should take 
place, and it represented the greatest concession that 
England could be induced to grant on this long disputed 
question. 

The outcry against the treaty, even after its approval 
by the Senate, was fierce in the strongly Democratic re- 
gions of Kentucky. A meeting of free citizens of Clark 
County ventured to send a petition and remonstrance to 
the President, with the hope of helping to prevent his sign- 
ing it. "Should you, sir! " ran the petition, "concur with 
the Senate in the signature of that treaty, our prognostica- 
tion is, that Western America is gone forever . . . lost to 
the Union, and grasped by the voracious clutches of that 
insatiable and iniquitous George, the Third, of Britain." ^ 
In the " Political Creed of a Western American," ^ reap- 
pears the tendency, before manifested, to insult everyone 
who showed any disposition to favor the treaty. "I be- 
lieve," it reads, "that the treaty formed by Jay and the 
British King, is the offspring of a vile aristocratic few, who 
are enemies to the equality of man, friends to no govern- 
ment, but that whose funds they can convert to their pri- 
vate emolument. ... I believe that the political dotage of 
our good old American Chief has arrived; ... I do sin- 
cerely believe (from a knowledge of the man), that the 
Senator from Kentucky, who voted in favor of the treaty, 
was actuated by motives the most dishonorable . . . that 
he is a stranger to virtue, either private or public, and that 
he would sell his country for a price, easily to be told. 

"I do also believe that Kentucky has as little reason to 

1 "Kentucky Gazette," September 19, 1795. 
' Ibid., September 26, 1795. 
Kentucky — 13 



194 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

complain on this important occasion, as any of her sister 
States; as she had a perfect knowledge of the character 
of the man she delegated to represent her, knew that he 
possessed a soul incapable of good, and sentiments op- 
posed ... to her interest." ^ 

Washington, meanwhile, having satisfied himself that 
the alarming rumors which had caused him to hesitate, 
were false, signed the treaty, ^ which thus became the law 
of the land. 

But even now the opposition could not submit, and a 
daring plan was formed to nullify the treaty in the national 
House of Representatives, by declining to appropriate the 
money necessary to carry out its provisions. This plan was 
happily defeated, largely through a masterly speech of 
Fisher Ames, made before the Committee of the Whole, 
which ranks as one of America's greatest forensic and 
oratorical triumphs.^ 

In his next message to the Kentucky Legislature, Gov- 
ernor Shelby proceeded to show that he, at least, did not 
even yet consider the incident closed. 

"I should not discharge the duty I owe my country," 
he said, " . . . if I did not call your attention to the treaty 
lately concluded between America and Great Britain. 
If this treaty contained stipulations which were only con- 
trary to good policy, although it would be the undoubted 
right of the State Legislatures to express their opinions 
of those stipulations, it might be a matter of doubt whether 

1 A systematic defence of the treaty, article by article, was made in the " Ken- 
tucky Gazette" of October, 1795, but people were swayed by emotions and did 
not readily listen to reason. 

2 For the documents relating to the ratification, see " Kentucky Gazette," 
March 26, 1796. 

' "Works of Fisher Ames," II, pp. 37-71. 



COMMERCIAL HIGHWAY OF THE WEST 195 

it would be expedient for them to do so. But as many 
stipulations contained in this treaty are evidently con- 
trary to the Constitution of the General Government, I 
consider it as the indispensable duty of the State Legisla- 
tures to express their sentiments upon such parts of the 
treaty as are unconstitutional, with the firmness and de- 
cency becoming the representatives of freemen. If you 
view this important question in the same light as I do, I 
have no doubt but that you will act upon it in such a man- 
ner as will do honor to yourselves and our constituents." ^ 

This somewhat radical recommendation, looking un- 
mistakably in the direction of nullification of a funda- 
mental federal law, was fortunately neglected by the 
Legislature, and, as the time fixed by the treaty for the 
evacuation of the Northwest posts approached, the Ken- 
tucky people began to realize that at last the Federal 
Government had adjusted one of their burdens, and to 
feel that Jay's treaty was perhaps not wholly bad after 
all. 

On May 10, 1796, Secretary of War McHenry arranged 
with Dorchester for the transfer of the long disputed forts, 
and, a few days later, orders were issued to the British 
commanders to evacuate them.' Thus, at last, the govern- 
ment relieved the Kentucky people of the most persistent 
abetters of their savage enemy, and, before the outcry 
against the great patriots, Jay and Washington, had fairly 
died away, Kentucky had begun to enjoy the blessings of 
the lasting peace, caused by Jay's treaty. 

Meanwhile, the Federal Government had turned its 
attention to the other great need of her Western citizens, 

1 "Kentucky Gazette," November 28, 1795. 

2 Winsor's "Westward Movement," p. 482. 



196 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

the navigation of the Mississippi River. From the days 
of the first settlements in Kentucky, this question had been 
regarded as vital to progress, and almost essential to ex- 
istence upon the Western frontier, and out of it had 
sprung those foreign intrigues which darken the pages of 
Kentucky's early history. It was this question which led 
Wilkinson into his first aberration from the duty which he 
owed his adopted home in the West, and which induced 
Clark and his followers to lend their influence to Genet's 
schemes for forcing America to join France against the 
British-Spanish Alliance. The interference of the Federal 
Government, upon that occasion, had been productive of 
much unpatriotic language in the West, and men had 
settled down to endure the tyranny of Spanish laws over 
their commerce, with anything but contented spirits. 

What those Spanish laws, in restraint of Kentucky 
commerce, were, is briefly indicated by the newspaper 
articles of the day, of which the following extract ^ is an 
example. "How long will America submit to the opera- 
tion of paying a heavy, degrading tribute to a Spanish 
officer, for a license (in his power ever to deny) to proceed 
to sea with their vessels and produce, and under restric- 
tions of making such vessels Spanish bottoms. . . . .? 
If they wish to export their produce they must not only 
make use of the most humble solicitations, but they are 
compelled besides to pay a very high duty for the permis- 
sion of sailing out of the Mississippi under the colors of a 
foreign nation at war with our allies. How degrading 
such restrictions! How humiliating to an American! 

" It is easy to foresee what will be the consequences, 
if a treaty be not soon, and very soon, negotiated with 

1 From the "Kentucky Gazette," October 12, 1793. 



COMMERCIAL HIGHWAY OF THE WEST 197 
Spain . . . QuosQUE tandem, hispania, abuteris pa- 

TIENTIA NOSTRA ? " 

In the same issue of the "Gazette" appears a spirited 
resolution of the Lexington Democratic Society: 

"Resolved, that the free and undisturbed use and 
navigation of the River Miss, is the natural right of 
the Citizens of this Commonwealth; and is inalienable 
except with the soil; and that neither time, tyranny nor 
prescription on the one side, nor acquiescence, weakness 
or non-use on the other can ever sanctify the abuse of this 
right." 1 

A few weeks later the same Democratic Society pub- 
lished its view of the steps to be taken, under the circum- 
stances then existing: "It will be proper to make an at- 
tempt in a peaceable manner to go with an American 
bottom properly registered and cleared into the sea through 
the channel of this Mississippi, that we may either pro- 
cure an immediate acknowledgment of our right from the 
Spaniards; or, if they obstruct us in the enjoyment of that 
right, that we may be able to lay before the Federal Gov- 
ernment such unequivocal proofs of their having done so, 
that they will be compelled to say whether they will aban- 
don or protect the inhabitants of the Western country." ^ 
Whether this suggestion was actually carried out, we do 
not know, but the agitation continued, and the Federal 
Government was besieged by demands that she do for the 
West what she had prevented their doing for themselves; 
and, when no immediate response was returned, the Ken- 
tucky Legislature proceeded (on December 20, 1794), to 
instruct her representatives in the United States Senate, 

1 Passed October 7, 1793. "Kentucky Gazette," October 12, 1793. 
* "Kentucky Gazette," November 11, 1793. 



[ 



198 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

"to require information of the steps which have been 
taken to obtain the navigation of the Mississippi, and to 
transmit such information to the Executive of this State." ^ 

It then appeared that the Federal Government had 
(November 24, 1794) commissioned Thomas Pinckney as 
envoy to Madrid, with instructions to negotiate a treaty 
securing the free navigation of the Mississippi,^ and when 
even this news did not silence the outcry from Kentucky, 
the United States Senate took the unusual course of pass- 
ing a resolution providing: 

"That the President of the United States be, and he 
hereby is, requested to cause to be communicated to the 
Executive of the State of Kentucky, such part of the ex- 
isting negotiation between the United States and Spain, 
relative to this subject, as he may deem advisable and 
consistent with the course of negotiations." ^ 

Accordingly, the President appointed James Innes, 
" a Special Commissioner to detail a faithful history of the 
negotiations pending between the United States and the 
Court of Madrid respecting the navigation of the Missis- 
sippi." The announcement of his appointment was made 
by a letter from Edmund Randolph, Secretary of State, 
to " His Excellency, the Governor of Kentucky," in which 
occur these words: 

"In this step your Excellency will discern a further 
proof of the anxiety of the President to remove all grounds 

1 "Kentucky Gazette," February 7, 1795. 

2 Innes to Shelby: "Kentucky Gazette," March 14, 1795. Thomas Jeffer- 
son had been the President's first choice for this mission and, upon his decHn- 
ing, Patrick Henry had been asked to serve, but had pleaded age and infirmity 
as his reasons for declining. See also Fuller's "Purchase of Florida," p. 67; 
and Winsor's "Westward Movement," p. 548. 

3 "Kentucky Gazette," March 14, 1795. 



COMMERCIAL HIGHWAY OF THE WEST 199 

of dissatisfaction: and indeed, sir, I cannot pass by this 
occasion of asserting my persuasion that, after the most 
ample disclosure of the public conduct respecting the 
Mississippi, you will find that nothing has been left un- 
attempted by him, which his powers, his exertions, and 
the situation of our country would permit." ^ 

Innes' first communication of the details of the nego- 
tiations was an elaborate synopsis of the entire situation.- 
He pointed out the fact that Spain had always ranged 
herself rather with the enemies than with the friends of 
the United States; that, even during the Revolution, al- 
though joining France against England, she had "made 
no formal recognition of the independence of the United 
States;" and that, in spite of all negotiation, she had never 
consented to a "pact or treaty of any kind" with us. 

He then described the conditions under which Pinckney 
was appointed, and called attention to the fact that the 
President had decided not to, "enter into any commercial 
relations with the Court of Madrid, 'until our right to the 
free use of the Mississippi shall be most unequivocally ac- 
knowledged and established, on principles never hereafter 
to be drawn into contestation.' " 

Besides the free navigation of the Mississippi, which 
Pinckney's instructions required him to secure at once, 
on account of the impatience and hostility of the Kentuck- 
ians,^ he was expected to gain two other important con- 
cessions. He was directed to secure a port of deposit 
within Spanish possessions at the mouth of the Mississippi, 



1 Full texts, "Kentucky Gazette," March 14, 1795. 

2 Dated February 15, 1795. Text in "Kentucky Gazette," March 14, 1795. 

3 Fuller's "Purchase of Florida," p. 67. Spain freely admitted that this was 
ours by right. Ibid., p. 72. 



200 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

without which the free navigation would have been com- 
paratively valueless;^ and to persuade Spain to accept the 
thirty-first meridian as the northern boundary of her West 
Florida possessions, instead of a line running East from 
the mouth of the Yazoo Creek, which she claimed as her 
right. 

Pinckney reached Madrid, June 28, 1795, but it was 
August loth before he was permitted to lay his proposi- 
tions before the representatives of the King, and even then, 
negotiations dragged heavily, the Spanish representative 
claiming that the United States should pay for the right 
of navigation, and Pinckney insisting that the United 
States would never consent to pay for a right which was 
already legally hers, citing as authority the Peace of 1783. 

It was while these negotiations were in progress that the 
last Spanish intrigue to separate Kentucky from the Fed- 
eral Union developed. Carondelet, the Spanish Governor 
of the Louisiana territory, determined to make one more 
effort to take advantage of the restless distrust which he 
believed to exist in Kentucky, concerning the good faith 
of the Federal Government. It was obvious that the com- 
mercial interests of Kentucky were more nearly akin to 
those of Louisiana than to those of the Eastern States. 
The wealth of the West and of Louisiana, was easily ac- 
cessible to Kentuckians, if only they could have free use 
of the Mississippi, and free deposit at its mouth; while the 
American markets beyond the Alleghanies, were as yet 
almost inaccessible during a large part of the year.^ It 

1 James Innes to Gov. Isaac Shelby, "Kentucky Gazette," March 14, 1795. 

2 As late as January 12, 1798, Sam. Brown wrote to his brother, John, who 
was attending Congress at Philadelphia, "... I hope we may, with some de- 
gree of certainty, count on receiving weekly irrformation from the Atlantic 
States." Brown MSS. 



COMMERCIAL HIGHWAY OF THE WEST 201 

was, therefore, natural for the Governor of Louisiana to 
suppose that self-interest would lead the Kentucky people 
to accept Spanish advances, disown their connection with 
the distant and unsympathetic Federal Government, and 
enjoy the fruits of their natural connection with the power 
which controlled their only commercial highway. 

It was a scheme founded upon sound commercial facts, 
but it failed to take into account one important item. The 
people of Kentucky were proud of the possession of liberty, 
and were always most complacent when comparing their 
freedom with the servile condition of the French Creoles. 
Had Carondelet been able to appreciate this fact, he would 
have seen at once the utter futility of his schemes. As it 
was, he acted upon his own conception of the situation, 
and, in June, 1795, addressed a letter to Judge Sebastian, 
an ex-Episcopal clergyman, British born, and none too 
loyal to his adopted country, who had worked himself into 
the responsible position of a judge of the Supreme Court 
of Kentucky. In this letter Carondelet offered to send 
Colonel Gayoso to New Madrid, to meet such men as 
Sebastian might send thither, for the purpose of talking 
over the question of the Mississippi; ^ and later, in July of 
the same year, he dispatched Thomas Power with a second 
communication to Sebastian, in which he writes: "The 
confidence imposed in you by my predecessor. Brigadier 
General Miro, and your former correspondence, have in- 
duced me to make a communication to you, highly inter- 
esting to the country in which you live and to Louisiana." 
After describing the Spanish Monarch as willing to grant 
the Kentucky claim to free navigation of the Mississippi, 
and, as "desirous to establish certain regulations recipro- 

1 Winsor's "Westward Movement," p. 553. 



202 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 






cally beneficial to the commerce of both countries," ^ the 
writer asks Sebastian to, "procure agents to be chosen and 
fully empowered by the people of your country to negotiate 
with Colonel Gayoso on the subject, at New Madrid . . . 
in October next." 

Sebastian having considered the proposition, decided 
to look into the question farther, and arranged that Judge i 
Innis ^ should meet him at the house of Colonel Nicholas, 
in Mercer County, to consider what steps should be taken 
by way of preliminary investigation. 

They agreed that Sebastian should meet Gayoso and 
ascertain exactly what Spain wanted, and what con- 
cessions she was willing to make to Kentucky. Accord- 
ingly, with no authority from either the government or 
the people of Kentucky, he descended the Ohio, and 
opened negotiations with Gayoso: but they soon disa- 
greed and, in order to settle the points in dispute, repaired 
to New Orleans and laid them before the Spanish Governor 
himself. Carondelet at once offered to grant to Kentucky 
liberal concessions in the matter of import duties: but, be- 
fore any definite agreement was entered into, news reached 
New Orleans that Pinckney's negotiations, after dragging 
along for four months, had suddenly proved successful, 
and that, on October 27, 1795,^ a treaty had been signed at 
San Lorenzo el Real, which yielded practically everything 
which the United States had desired. 

The boundary question had been settled so as to fix the 
thirty-first parallel as the line separating the United States i 

* Butler, p. 344, for extracts from this correspondence. 

2 Cf . Articles in "Western World," signed "Voice in the West," Marshall, 
II, p. 445- 

3 "Kentucky Gazette," March 26, 1796. Treaty text, see Snow's "American 
Diplomacy," p. 106. 



COMMERCIAL HIGHWAY OF THE WEST 203 

from the Florida territories. The middle of the channel 
of the Mississippi River had been declared the western 
boundary of the United States, and the treaty further 
stated (Article 4), that, " His Catholic Majesty has likewise 
agreed that the navigation of the said river, in its whole 
breadth, from its source to the ocean, shall be free only to 
his subjects, and the citizens of the United States, unless 
he should extend this privilege to the subjects of other 
powers by special convention." Of the other articles, the 
eighth applied most closely to the needs of the people of 
the West, as, it gave to them and to all citizens of the United 
States, the right to deposit their goods in New Orleans, 
and to export them thence without paying any duty, other 
than a fair price for storage. This right was to continue 
for three years, the King agreeing to assign an equivalent 
port, in case he should see fit to refuse the privilege for New 
Orleans, after the expiration of the specified time. 

"There can be no doubt," wrote one of the Senators 
from Kentucky, in communicating the provisions of the 
treaty, "but that the Senate will advise and consent to the 
ratification of the treaty, which presents such important 
advantages to the Western Country;" ^ and apparently the 
Spanish officials were of the same opinion, for they 
promptly informed Judge Sebastian that any further ne- 
gotiations with him were out of the question. Sebastian, 
after vainly urging the Governor to continue negotiations, 
returned to Kentucky to await developments, hoping 
against hope that the new treaty would fail of ratification. 

So far as the formal action of the two nations was con- 
cerned, his hopes were soon blasted. Ratifications were ex- 
changed at Aranjuez, on April 25, 1796, and, on August 2, 

1" Kentucky Gazette," March 26, 1796. 



204 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

by Presidential proclamation, the treaty became the law 
of the land. 

However, the fact that Spain had unaccountably (dur- 
ing the last three days of the negotiations), yielded to 
Pinckney the points which she had, for four months, stub- 
bornly denied, soon raised the question as to whether she 
was sincere in the transaction. Both Hamilton and Pinck- 
ney thought that her change of attitude had been due to 
her belief that Jay's treaty pointed to a close alliance be- 
tween England and the United States, with perhaps a 
joint declaration of war against France and Spain; and 
that, this proving untrue, she would refuse to carry out 
her agreement with the United States. 

But, whatever the cause which had induced Spain to 
make concessions, the actions of the Spanish authorities 
of Louisiana soon convinced the watchful Sebastian that 
the treaty was not going to be carried into effect. In- 
deed, Gayoso openly boasted that its concessions would 
never become operative, and Carondelet, after a brief de- 
lay, proceeded to reopen negotiations with Sebastian, this 
time making his propositions unequivocal, as he felt cer- 
tain that the man to whom he spoke could be trusted, 
where his own reward was assured. Thomas Power, the 
medium of the former negotiations, was dispatched to 
Louisville (summer, 1797), to convey to Sebastian a letter 
from Carondelet,^ asking that he consider its contents, and 
then call together his friends, Innis, Nicholas and Murray, 
to decide upon them. The definite propositions, thus to be 
laid before these four men, were : ^ 

(i) These gentlemen, "are immediately to exert all 

1 Butler, p. 246. 

2 Text of the Proposals, Marshall, II, pp. 220-222. 



COMMERCIAL HIGHWAY OF THE WEST 205 

their influence in impressing on the minds of the inhabi- 
tants of the Western Country, a conviction of the necessity 
of their withdrawing themselves from the Federal Union 
and forming an independent government. . . . : " while, 
in order to compensate them for the loss of time, and the 
expenditure of energy required in this important work, 
Carondelet was to deliver to them the sum of one hun- 
dred thousand dollars, and to pay, in addition, to anyone 
who should forfeit a public office by this service, a sum, 
"equal at least to the emoluments of the office." 

(2) The second article proposed that, as soon as a decla- 
ration of Independence should have been issued. Fort 
Massac should be seized and held by the troops furnished 
by the Spanish King, who agreed to supply, at this point 
in the Revolution, an additional one hundred thousand 
dollars, for the expense of the enterprise. 

(3) Spain's compensation for her aid to the proposed 
revolution, is pointed out in the third article. She was 
to have, as the Northern boundary of the Floridas, a line 
starting, "on the Mississippi, at the mouth of the River 
Yazoo. . . ." In other words, with the help of Kentucky, 
she would disregard the agreement made in the Pinckney 
treaty, and return to her old claim which had been 
definitely abandoned when that treaty was ratified. His 
Catholic Majesty further proposed to defend the new na- 
tion against the Indian tribes South of the Ohio, and to 
aid in reducing the latter to the condition of dependents 
and subjects, in case the new nation should, in future, con- 
sider such a course desirable. He also pledged his honor 
not to interfere, "directly or indirectly," in the framing 
of a Constitution or laws for the new nation, and to "de- 
fend and support it, in preserving its independence." 



2o6 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

Such were the inducements which Power laid before 
Judge Sebastian, and he stated, in addition, that he would 
gladly present to his master any objections which the Ken- 
tuckians might have to the propositions, and that he de- 
sired them to feel that their wishes would be favorably 
considered. The crowning temptation was the promise 
that, if they should separate from the Union and form an 
independent State, as above indicated, Spain would grant 
them greater privileges and advantages than they could 
possibly hope for, even if Pinckney's treaty should be 
fully carried out in all of its details. 

Armed with this dangerous communication, the very 
consideration of which stamps him as a traitor to his 
adopted country, Sebastian paid a visit to Judge Innis at 
his home near Frankfort, while Power passed on to Detroit 
to ascertain whether James Wilkinson, now General-in- 
Chief of the American army, was still in a humor for 
Spanish intrigue. 

Innis, after hearing what Sebastian had to say, de- 
clared the project to be dangerous, and refused to coun- 
tenance it. Sebastian professed to entertain the same 
views, but persuaded Innis to consult Colonel Nicholas 
before the final answer should be sent to Power. Nich- 
olas' opinion was also decidedly against entering into any 
such treasonable project, and it was he who drafted the 
reply to Power, declaring that they, "would not be con- 
cerned ... in any attempt ... to separate the West- 
ern Country from the United States." It added also that 
they believed the Federal Government would look out for 
their interests in the important matter of the navigation 
of the Mississippi, and that, in any event, it was obviously 
for the best interest of Spain to encourage free inter- 






COMMERCIAL HIGHWAY OF THE WEST 207 

course between her American subjects and the inhabitants 
of the western parts of the United States.^ 

Up to this point, therefore, it is fair to say, with Butler, 
that, "the whole tenor of the conduct of Messrs. Innis 
and Nicholas cannot justify the slightest suspicion of 
their fidelity to the Union of the American States." ^ 

The same cannot, however, be said of General Wilkin- 
son. In spite of the high command with which he had 
been honored by the Federal Government, he was as 
ready as ever to intrigue for his own ends, and as cunning 
as ever in covering his tracks. Power arrived in the 
neighborhood of Detroit on August 16, and Wilkinson 
gave him the desired interviev/, but showed at once that his 
fears had been aroused by the news of President Adams' 
recent order to the Governor of the Northwestern Terri- 
tory, to watch for Power and send him to Philadelphia 
for investigation. As investigation was what General Wil- 
kinson desired to avoid, he hastily informed Power that 
he must permit himself "to be conducted immediately, 
under a guard, to Fort Massac, and from there to New 
Madrid." ' 

Wilkinson's conduct in this matter reminds one strongly 
of his dealings with Burr a few years later. Although he 
had long enjoyed the doubtful honor of leadership in the 
Spanish intrigues in the West, he now declared such 
projects chimerical, insisting that, as the inhabitants of 
the West had gained, by means of Pinckney's treaty, 

1 Mr. Marshall labors hard to implicate Innis and Nicholas with Sebastian 
and Wilkinson in this conspiracy, but fails to bring forward convincing proof. 
Even he, however, admits that Murray was not implicated, as the communica- 
tion was not presented to him. Marshall, II, p. 223. 

2 Butler, p. 248; Marshall, II, pp. 224-225, takes opposite view. 

3 Winsor's "Westward Movement," pp. 567-568. 



2o8 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

all that they wanted, they would not consent to form 
any commercial alliances, or to consider the question 
of separating themselves from the Union of States, even 
under the most tempting conditions. In his opinion Spain 
could do nothing but surrender the territory abandoned 
by that treaty. He said that he had known for some time 
that Spain would not voluntarily carry out the stipulations 
of the treaty, but that she would be forced to do so; add- 
ing, however, that he expected soon to be appointed Mili- 
tary Governor of Natchez, and would then, perhaps, be 
in a position to carry out the projects, which for the pres- 
ent had been frustrated by the conclusion of the treaty. 

With Wilkinson it was a double treason. In intention, 
at least, he had long been an enemy to the Union which 
he was supposed to serve: but he knew that the spirit of 
Wayne still pervaded the army which he had the un- 
merited honor to command, and that, upon any sign of 
treachery to the United States, his own officers and men 
would be the first to denounce him. He showed his 
sympathy, or perhaps his instinct of self-preservation, by 
conducting the Spanish agent beyond the danger of arrest, 
while his refusal to accept Power's advances served only 
to show that he considered the time for treachery to be ill 
chosen. 

But even while Power and Wilkinson discussed the 
failure of their plans, Andrew Ellicott was endeavoring 
to carry out the orders of the President, to survey the 
boundary lines agreed upon in Pinckney's treaty. On Feb- 
ruary 24, 1797, he had reached Natchez, and had de- 
manded to know why the forts had not been evacuated.^ 

1 "Kentucky Gazette," July 5 and 12, 1797, gives the details of his difl5- 
culties. 



COMMERCIAL HIGHWAY OF THE WEST 209 

Gayoso, who was in command, had replied that the evac- 
uation had been delayed for want of suitable vessels; but, 
on March i, Carondelet himself had arrived and declared 
that the forts could not be given up until he should be in- 
formed from Madrid whether they were to be surrendered 
as they stood, or should be first dismantled.^ 

This was obviously a pretext, and the real reason of 
Spain's sudden anxiety to retain the forts soon appeared. 
England and Spain had declared war upon one another, 
and it was rumored that a British expedition was shortly 
to start from Canada, for the invasion of Louisiana. In 
September, Ellicott received from the Federal Govern- 
ment as precise information concerning this projected 
expedition as could be furnished under the circumstances. 
He was informed that the British plans included an at- 
tempt to join the West in alliance with England against 
Spain,^and that Colonel William Blount, of Tennessee, had 
been convicted of complicity in the plot, and had (July 8, 
1797) been expelled from the United States Senate, with 
only one dissenting voice. 

The scheme, as matured, was that a British fleet should 
ascend the Mississippi, and cooperate with an army of 
four thousand frontiersmen, under the direction of Blount 
and Orr of Tennessee, Whitely of Kentucky, and cer- 
tain others, among whom was a Captain Chesholm, 
vaguely referred to in the letter which had convicted 
Blount.^ 

The real object of England was doubtless to prevent the 

1 Message of John Adams, June 12, 1797, published in "Kentucky Ga- 
zette," July 5, 1797. 

2 Winsor's "Westward Movement," p. 568. 

3 Copy of the letter from Blount to Carey, dated Colonel King's Iron Works, 
April 21, 1797, in G. S. Taft's "Senate Election Cases," pp. 76-77. 

Kentucky — 14 



210 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

wily French minister, Talleyrand,^ from consummating a 
plan for securing possession of Florida and Louisiana; but 
whatever it was, the United States did not consider it 
sufficient cause to justify Spain in refusing to live up to 
the terms of the recent Pinckney treaty. In December 
Ellicott's little force in Natchez was increased by a de- 
tachment of United States troops, a circumstance which 
convinced Gayoso, who, during the previous July, had 
succeeded Governor Carondelet, that the treaty was re- 
garded as a finality by the United States, and that its 
provisions would be insisted upon, even at the cost of an 
open rupture with His Catholic Majesty. To that length 
Spain was not prepared to go. Orders were therefore 
issued for the evacuation of Natchez, Walnut Hills, and 
other posts north of the thirty-first meridian, and, after 
a further delay of several months, the Spanish troops 
marched out (March 30, -1798), leaving the forts intact.^ 
The American flag was raised over the region so long in 
dispute, and the pioneers of the West found themselves 
in the possession of the long coveted right of freely navi- 
gating the great River, which formed their only highway 
to the markets of the world. 

1 "Kentucky Gazette," May 20, 1797. 
2 Fuller's "Florida Purchase," p. 92. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS OF I798 AND I799 

In March, 1797, John Adams found himself at the head 
of a nation, stirred by violent political excitement. On 
the one side were the Federalists, who, though broken by 
factions, were responsible for his election, on the other, 
the new Democratic-Republicans, who, having succeeded 
in electing Jefferson as Vice-President, recalled with bit- 
terness that the rejection of four disputed votes would 
have placed their leader in the White House. The vast 
majority of the Kentucky people belonged to this new 
party, which had been saddled with the blame for the 
Whiskey Rebellion, the Jacobin Clubs, and the attempt to 
defeat the carrying out of Jay's treaty. In spite of re- 
peated reverses, however, it had gradually increased in 
power, until it was now fully as strong as the Federalists, 
while it enjoyed the exceptional advantage of being led 
by a statesman, ever ready to profit by the mistakes of 
his opponents. 

It is not our province to pass judgment upon the char- 
acter of Thomas Jefferson, but as he chose to use the 
Kentucky Legislature for the accomplishment of his po- 
litical ends, we must trace, in outline at least, the events 
in national affairs which gave him his opportunity. 

As no absorbing subject of domestic policy at this time 
presented itself, to serve as a battle ground between the 
two parties, foreign affairs continued to hold the atten- 



212 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

tion of both; and if we seek for the central fact of John 
Adams' administration we shall find it in the single word, 
France. Washington and Jay had, temporarily, settled 
the English question; but just so fast as our relations with 
that country improved, our relations with France and 
Napoleon grew worse. Jay's treaty had enraged France, 
and we must admit that her anger was not wholly unjust. 
She charged us with the willful violation of two solemn 
treaties, the first, of offensive and defensive alliance, the 
second, of friendship, navigation and commerce; and 
claimed that, far from keeping our sacred agreements, we 
had, without a word of notice to her, signed a treaty with 
her enemy, England, which placed that nation in a posi- 
tion of favor, denied to her. 

This was, undoubtedly, a reasonable complaint, from 
the point of view of the French Directory, and they at once 
selected an heroic method of showing their displeasure. 
They passed a law which declared, in effect, that "as neu- 
trals suffer themselves to be treated by England, so shall 
they be treated by France." 

James Monroe, a follower of Jefferson, whom Washing- 
ton had sent to France to soothe her anger, had shown his 
democratic spirit by exhibiting sympathy with France, and 
by listening to remarks such as no American, in govern- 
mental service, has a right to hear. Washington had, 
therefore, just before his retirement, recalled him, and sent 
Chas. C. Pinckney, of South Carolina, to take his place. 
France objected to the change, and refused to recognize 
Pinckney, or to receive his credentials, while, a little later, 
it was learned that she had gone so far as to threaten him 
with arrest if he remained in France. Here, then, was a 
critical condition of affairs, and war seemed unavoidable; 



THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS 213 

but Alexander Hamilton, the founder and genius of the 
Federalist party, was, as usual, ready with a solution. 
If war should be declared against France, he argued, 
without a strong effort at reconciliation, the Government 
would lose the support of a large body of the Republican 
party, whose tendency had always been to favor that 
country; and he therefore urged President Adams to ap- 
point a commission of three men to be sent to France, 
with instructions to make an honorable settlement, if 
such were possible. Pinckney, John Marshall and Gerry, 
were accordingly selected, and departed upon this mission, 
upon the outcome of which peace or war was believed to 
depend. 

As little hope of a peaceful adjustment was felt by the 
Federalist leaders, they considered it the part of wisdom 
to prepare for war; but the Republicans in Congress op- 
posed all measures looking toward armament, and Presi- 
dent Adams was almost in despair, when dispatches ar- 
rived from France which proved, to the satisfaction of the 
Administration, that the last hope of peace had failed. 

Our ambassadors had been subjected to persistent and 
continued insult. Unofficial personages had been sent by 
Talleyrand (Minister for Foreign Affairs), to demand 
that large sums of money be paid to the French Directory, 
before any official communication ^ would be held with 
them, and to make other proposals equally insulting to 
the dignity and honor of a free nation.^ 

Adams straightway declared that he saw no hope of a 
peaceful and honorable settlement with France. The Re- 
publicans, however, openly questioned the honesty of the 

1 Compare article in " Kentucky Gazette," April 25, 1798. 

' Detailed account of these insults, "Kentucky Gazette," May 2, 1798. 



214 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

Administration, and continued their opposition to the war 
measures. Adams, therefore, consulted the leaders of his 
party upon the advisability of exhibiting the dispatches 
themselves, and taking his stand upon the whole body of 
facts. This was especially desirable as the House had 
already passed a Resolution, "That the President be re- |j 
quested to communicate to this House, the instructions 
to, and dispatches from, the envoys-extraordinary of the 
United States to the French Republic." ^ 

His confidential advisers agreeing with him, that this 
was the wisest course to pursue, Adams sent the required 
papers to Congress, with the request that they be "con- 
sidered in confidence, until the members of Congress are 
fully possessed of their contents." The effect was imme- 11 
diate. The Repubhcans read with dismay the insults 
which had been offered to our representatives, and saw 
no course open to them but to support the war policy. 

Shortly afterward, by the sanction of the President, the 
dispatches were given to the press, and published through- 
out the land, adding irresistible strength to the cause of 
Federalism.^ Bills preparing the country for war were 
rushed through Congress with little or no opposition,^ and 
Adams suddenly found himself riding upon the crest of 
the wave, classed with Washington in song and patriotic 
poem. His message of June 21, 1798, committed him to 
a policy which was no longer the policy of a party 
but of a nation. " I will never send another minister to 
France without assurance that he will be received, re- 
spected, and honored as the representative of a great, 

1 "Kentucky Gazette," April 25, 1798. 

2 Schouler, I, p. 387. 

3 "Kentucky Gazette," May 23, June 6, etc., 1798. 



THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS 215 

free, powerful and independent nation." ^ Thousands of 
men who distrusted Adams and the Federahsts, were 
swept along by the current of excitement, and supported 
both with enthusiasm. Bands of young men organized 
in different sections of the country, and despatched memo- 
rials of sympathy and support to the President. Students 
in the great seats of learning, Princeton, New Haven and 
Cambridge, drew up addresses, eagerly pledging their 
support to the Federalist party. ^ One Republican leader 
after another was carried away by the current of public 
opinion. 

"Giles, Clopton, Cabell and Nicholas have gone," 
Jefferson wrote to Madison,^ "and Clay goes to-morrow. 
Parker has completely gone over to the war party. In 
this state of things they will carry what they please. 
One of the war party . . . declared some time ago 
that they would pass a citizen bill, an alien bill, and a 
sedition bill." 

This last sentence must have contained a gleam of 
hope for these two disconsolate Republican leaders. They 
knew that, should the Federalists, in the wantonness 
of power, venture to enact oppressive or unconstitutional 
laws against the freedom of the press, or any other fun- 
damental doctrine. Republicanism might well hope to 
come out victorious in this apparently unequal contest; and 
certain well-known facts led them to credit the assertion 
that their opponents really meant to carry out this dan- 
gerous program. The long continued abuse which they 
had received from the Republican press had stung their 

1 Schouler, I, p. 391. 

2 McMaster, II, p. 381. 

3 Jeflferson to Madison, April 26, 1798. " Jefferson's Works," Memorial Ed., 
1903, X, p. 31. 



; 



2l6 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 



leaders to madness, and they were burning for revenge.^ 
Most of the immigrants, since the adoption of the Federal 
Constitution, had been Frenchmen, driven out by political 
troubles, or British subjects with ideas too Republican for 
use in their own countries (England, Scotland and Ire 
land). Many had been journalists at home, and more ; 
than one had fled to escape prosecution for seditious libel 
against the British Government.^ Upon finding them- 
selves safely established in their new home, some of these 
had resumed the practice of their profession, and that 
without a change of policy. Their admiration for the 
French Revolution, and their hatred of England com- 
bined to make them intense supporters of Jefferson and 
his party, and just as intense enemies of the Federalists. 
Their publications were often indecently insulting, and 
sometimes, maliciously untrue. 

To silence these men and to guard against the in- 
sidious influence of a large foreign population were, 
therefore, the chief causes of the passage of the Alien and 
Sedition laws, which called forth the famous Kentucky 
Resolutions of 1798 and 1799. There was, however, 
another reason why the Federalists feared the influence ; 
of French sympathizers. It was generally believed that 
France was planning to regain Louisiana, and that these 
foreign Americans were operating to prepare our western 
territory for joining her, when her plans should come to 
maturity. 

Accordingly, on June 18, 1798, the exultant Federahsts 
passed the first act of their disastrous program.^ It de- 

1 Hildreth, "Second Series," II, p. 210. 

2 For example, Callender, temporarily editor of the "Aurora," in Bache's 
absence. 

3 Annals of Congress. "This Act was repealed in 1802, and the term of 



THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS 217 

clared that henceforth naturalization papers should be 
granted only to such foreigners as had resided fourteen 
years in this country, and had declared their intention of 
becoming citizens, at least five years before the time for ob- 
taining their papers. Further, that aliens coming to this 
country after the passage of this law, must be registered, 
and must bring their certificates of registration, when they 
appeared for naturalization, as proof that they had lived 
fourteen years in the country: and that "alien enemies," 
(citizens of countries hostile to the United States), could 
not become citizens at all.^ 

Seeing that this long period of naturalization would nec- 
essarily increase the alien class, as under its provisions but 
few foreigners could for the present be admitted, the next 
law^ was designed to keep them safe and quiet during 
their long term of uncertain allegiance. It gave the Presi- 
dent full power to order all aliens whom he judged danger- 
ous to the peace and safety of the United States, or whom 
he suspected of treasonable or secret machinations against 
the Government, to leave the country within a certain def- 
inite period; and, if any alien so outlawed were found in the 
country after the date fixed by the President, he was liable 
to imprisonment for three years, and would never again 
be eligible for citizenship. If one thus imprisoned were 
deemed better out of the country, the President could 
send him out, and, if he returned without permission, he 

naturalization was once more fixed at five years, from which it has not since 
greatly varied." Schouler, I, p. 394, note. 

1 The law had previously been to grant naturalization papers to aliens who 
had resided five years in the United States. See "Annals of Congress," Jan- 
uary 29, 1795. 

* Act of June 25, 1798; "Annals of Congress." Its operation was limited to 
two years; McMaster, II, p. 395; Schouler, I, p. 394. 



2l8 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

might be imprisoned for as long a time as the President 
should think necessary for public safety. Besides the 
registration required under the new Naturalization law, 
the President was given power to require from each ship 
captain, upon his arrival, a list of all alien passengers. 

In the case of the so-called, "alien enemies," still more 
stringent legislation was thought necessary. The law ^ 
gave the President power, in time of war or invasion, to 
apprehend, restrain, or remove all natives, citizens or 
subjects of hostile governments, upon such terms as he 
should see fit to impose. It was thus an act deliberately 
setting aside the right of trial by jury in the case of foreign- 
ers, and submitting them to the arbitrary arrest and 
imprisonment of a single man, without restraint other 
than his own conscience. 

The Sedition Act, ^ so called, was even more despotic. 
The first Amendment to the Constitution declares that, 
"Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the free- 
dom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people 
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government 
for a redress of grievances." But this bold piece of 
legislation pronounced it a high misdemeanor, punish- 
able by fine and imprisonment, "for any persons unlaw- 
fully to combine and conspire together with intent to 
oppose any measure of the Government of the United 
States, . . . and to impede the operation of any law of 
the United States, or to intimidate persons from taking or 
holding public offices, or to commit, advise or attempt to 
procure any insurrection, riot, or unlawful assembly." 
Section two provides a fine and imprisonment for print- 

1 Act of July 6, 1798; " Annals of Congress." 
3 Act of July 14, 1798; Ibid. 



THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS 219 

ing or publishing, " any false, scandalous and malicious 
writing against the Government of the United States, or 
either House of Congress, or the President, with intent to 
defame them, or bring them into contempt or disrepute; 
or to excite against them the hatred of the good people of 
the United States, or to stir up sedition, or with intent to 
excite any unlawful combination therein for opposing or 
resisting any law" of the United States or any lawful act 
of the President; or to "aid, abet, or encourage, any hostile 
design of any foreign nation against the United States." 
Section three declared that truth should be given as evidence, 
and that the jury should be judges both of law and fact.^ 
Had the Federalist leaders sought to make themselves 
detested, they could not have found a surer way than the 
passage of these laws. Jefferson and his immediate fol- 
lowers saw, or pretended to see, in them the beginning of 
a movement toward changing the Republic into a Monar- 
chy. "For my own part," the former wrote to S. T. 
Mason, "I consider these laws as only an experiment on 
the American mind, to see how far it will bear an avowed 
violation of the Constitution. If this goes down, we shall 
immediately see attempted another Act of Congress, de- 
claring that the President shall continue in office during 
life, reserving to another occasion the transfer of the suc- 
cession to his heirs, and the establishment of the Senate 
for life. . . . That these things are in contemplation, I 
have no doubt; nor can I be confident of their failure, 
after the dupery of which our countrymen have shown 
themselves susceptible." ^ 

1 Text of Sedition Law, "Kentucky Gazette," August 8, 1798; Hildreth, 
"Second Series," II, pp. 226-227. 

2 Jefferson to S. T. Mason, October 11, 1798. "Jefferson's Works," Me- 
morial Ed., 1903, X, pp. 61-62. 



220 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

It was Jefferson's obvious duty, if he really cherished 
this remarkable belief, to show the people the insidious 
tendency of these laws, and the sinister designs against 
liberty which lurked behind them. As the leader of a 
political party, furthermore, it was his duty to make this 
exposure in the way most likely to strengthen his own 
party. With these ends in view, he conceived the plan of 
persuading such State Legislatures as still remained Re- 
publican, to pass resolutions, pointing out the character of 
the obnoxious acts, and declaring them unconstitutional. 
North Carolina at first appeared to him the likeliest field 
for the beginning of his crusade,^ but this opinion was 
soon altered by the fierce and open hostility against the 
Alien and Sedition laws manifested by the citizens of 
Kentucky, as well as by the fact that North Carolina began 
to show a disposition to desert the faltering standard of 
Jeffersonian Democracy. 

The Kentucky newspapers for the latter part of the 
summer of 1798, were filled with accounts of meetings 
and resolutions against the Alien and Sedition laws, 
and the Administration which had produced them, the 
"Gazette" of August i, for example, containing a series 
of ten resolutions adopted by a mass meeting of Clark 
County, which are very like what Jefferson himself was 
planning. They read thus: 

" First. Resolved, That every officer of the Federal Gov- 
ernment, whether legislative, executive, or judicial, is the 
servant of the people, and is amenable and accountable to 
them : That being so, it becomes the people to watch over 

1 Jefferson to W. C. Nicholas, October, 1798. Text, Warfield's "Kentucky 
Resolutions of 1798," pp. 146-147. This letter does not appear in Jefferson's 
published works. 



THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS 221 

their conduct with vigilance, and to censure and remove 
them as they may judge expedient: . . . 

" Second. Resolved, That v^ar with France is impolitic, 
and must be ruinous to America in her present situation. 

"Third. Resolved, That we will, at the hazard of our 
lives and fortunes, support the Union, the independence, 
the Constitution, and the liberty of the United States. 

" Fourth. Resolved, That an aUiance with Great Britain 
would be dangerous and impolitic; That should defensive 
exertions be found necessary, we would rather support the 
burthen of them alone than embark our interests and hap- 
piness with that corrupt and tottering monarchy. 

"Fifth. Resolved, That the powers given to the Presi- 
dent to raise armies when he may judge necessary — with- 
out restriction as to number — and to borrow money to 
support them, without limitation as to the sum to be bor- 
rowed, or the quantum of interest to be given on the loan, 
are dangerous and, unconstitutional. 

"Sixth. Resolved, That the Alien bill is unconstitu- 
tional, impolitic, unjust and disgraceful to the American 
character. 

"Seventh. Resolved, That the privilege of printing 
and publishing our sentiments on all public questions is 
inestimable, and that it is unequivocally acknowleged and 
secured to us by the Constitution of the United States; 
That all the laws made to impair or destroy it are void, 
and that we will exercise and assert our just right in op- 
position to any law that may be passed to deprive us of it. 

"Eighth. Resolved, That the bill which is said to be 
now before Congress, defining the crime of treason and 
sedition, and prescribing the punishments therefor, as it 
has been presented to the public, is the most abominable 



222 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

that was ever attempted to be imposed upon a nation of 
free men. 

"Ninth. Resolved, That there is a sufficient reason to | 
believe, and we do believe, that our liberties are in danger; 
and we pledge ourselves to each other and to our country, 
that we will defend them against all unconstitutional at- 
tacks that may be made upon them. 

"Tenth. Resolved, That the foregoing resolutions be 
transmitted to our representative in Congress, by the Chair- 
man, certified by the Secretary, and that he be requested 
to present them to each branch of the Legislature and 
to the President, and that they also be published in the 
Kentucky 'Gazette.' 

"Jacob Fishback, Ch. 
"Attest: R. HiGGiNS, Sec." 

This was the meeting satirized by Peter Porcupine,^ in 
the following account: 

"At Lexington, a mob assembled on the 24th of July, 
with a fellow of the name of Fishback at their head; they 
got pen, ink, and paper, and to work they went, drawing 
up resolves to the number of ten, among which is the fol- 
lowing one, which, for sentiment as well as orthography, 
is unequalled even in the Annals of American Democracy. 

" ' Resolvd, that that es sufishunt resen to beleev, and 
wee doe beleev, that our leebeerte es in daingur, and wee 
plege ourselves too eche other, and too ouer countery, 
that wee will defende um agenst awl unconstetushonal 
ataks that mey bee mede upon um.' " 

Meetings were held in various other counties at which 
spirited addresses, and threatening resolutions against the 

1 "Porcupine's Gazette," September 21, 1798. Quoted in Warfield's "Ken- 
tucky Resolutions of 1798," pp. 46-47. 



'1 



THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS 223 

obnoxious Federal statutes were presented; ^ but the speech 
in which the American public will now take the deepest 
interest was delivered, toward the end of July, at a Lexing- 
ton Anti-Sedition law rally, by a tall youth of twenty-one, 
who bore the then obscure name, Henry Clay. 

Clay was a native of Hanover County, Virginia, having 
first seen the light of day on April 12, 1777, in a district 
familiarly known as "the Slashes." His father, a Baptist 
clergyman of eminent respectability, though of no great 
prominence, had died in 1782, when Henry was five years 
old, and the boy had received only the common school 
training offered in the little log-cabin schoolhouse of the 
district. In 1792, his mother had married a second hus- 
band, a Mr. Henry Watkins and had moved with him to 
Woodford County, Kentucky, taking five of her seven chil- 
dren with her. Henry and his eldest brother had been left 
in Virginia to carve out their own fortunes. Having secured 
employment at Richmond, in the office of Peter Tinsley, 
Clerk of the High Court of Chancery, Henry had attracted 
the notice of the venerable Chancellor Wythe, who, being 
unable to use his pen by reason of the gout, had frequently 
employed him as an amanuensis.^ This employment had 
brought him into contact with the distinguished Attorney- 
General and ex-Governor of Virginia, Robert Brooke, 
and, by the advice of these two eminent statesmen, he had 
turned his attention to the study of the law. In 1796, 
Brooke had taken Clay into his own house, and had given 
him the benefit of a year of uninterrupted study, at the end 
of which time, Clay had obtained his license from the Vir- 

1 Accounts of such meetings in Woodford, Fayette and Montgomery Coun- 
ties appear in the "Kentucky Gazette" for August 8 and 15, 1798. 

2 Sargent's "Clay," p. 3. 



224 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

ginia Court of Appeals, and moved to Lexington, Ken- 
tucky, to begin his practice.^ There he had been readily 
admitted as a practitioner before the Fayette Court of 
Quarter Sessions. "Without patrons, without the favor 
or countenance of the great or opulent," he afterwards 
declared,^ "without the means of paying my weekly board, 
and in the midst of a bar uncommonly distinguished by 
eminent members, I remember how comfortable I thought 
I should be, if I could make one hundred pounds, Virginia 
money, per year." 

Upon the present occasion. Clay stood in the crowd, 
listening to the long and eloquent speech of George Nicho- 
las, denouncing the Alien and Sedition laws, and the 
despotic tendency of the ruling Federalists. At the close 
a wild cheer greeted the distinguished orator, and then 
someone shouted the name of Henry Clay. The crowd, 
whose anti-federal enthusiasm had only been whetted by 
what they had just heard, at once took up the cry, de- 
manding that the young stranger from Virginia express 
his views upon the all-important topic. Fortunately for 
the future "Great Commoner," and for his dream of a 
hundred pounds a year, he was in complete sympathy 
with his audience. He mounted the wagon which served 
as a speaker's platform,^ and, taking up the theme of Fed- 
eral usurpation which Nicholas had used to such good ef- 
fect, he poured forth a torrent of invective, so remarkable 
and so unexpected, that, as an eyewitness of the scene de- 
clared, "it would be impossible to give an adequate idea 

1 Prentice's " Clay," pp. 7-8; Collins, II, pp. 205-206. 

2 Lexington Speech, June 9, 1842; Mallory's "Life and Speeches of Henry 
Clay," II, p. 572. 

3Warfield's "Kentucky Resolutions of 1798," p. 43, gives a somewhat 
different account of the meeting. 



THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS 225 

of the effect produced." ^ As that matchless voice, hitherto 
silent, but soon to become a controlling and compelling 
factor in national and international affairs, floated over 
the wondering throng of hardy frontiersmen, " indignation 
came like a dark shadow upon every countenance. The 
flame that burned in his own heart was caught up and 
lighted in every other. He ceased — but there was no shout. 
The feelings of the gathered multitude were too wild and 
deep for applause." ' He had voiced the prevailing opinion 
of his fellow citizens as no other living man could have 
voiced it, and no more words were wanted. The leading 
Federalist orator of the region, William Murray, came 
forward to the support of the Administration; but the 
crowd refused to hear him, and would have dragged him 
from the stand had not Nicholas and Clay interfered. 
Next, a Federalist named M'Lean attempted to secure a 
hearing, but the indignant crowd rushed forward with 
hostile intent, and " it was only by a precipitate flight into 
the country that he escaped being treated with personal 
indignity." ^ Then, the ugly humor of the crowd sud- 
denly vanishing, they raised the heroes of the day, George 
Nicholas and Henry Clay, upon their shoulders, and bore 
them away in triumphal procession. 

In the comments of the Federalist newspapers upon 
this meeting. Clay's speech and personal triumph were 
omitted, as he was a mere boy, with no political influence; 
those of George Nicholas, a man with a man's reputation, 
could not be entirely passed over, but they were minimized, 
while the efforts of the two bold Federalists, Murray and 

1 Prentice's "Clay," p. 23. 

2 Ibid., p. 24. 

3 Ibid. 

Kentucky — 15 



226 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

M'Lean, with the treatment which they experienced, were 
graphically set forth. The following is a report of the 
meeting by, "A respectable Gentleman of Pittsburg," 
printed first in the "Weekly Advertiser" of Reading, 
Pennsylvania, and later in the "Kentucky Gazette" of 
November 28, 1798. 

"You no doubt have heard of the commotions in Ken- 
tucky. If not, the story is this: Meetings were called in 
the principal towns to consider of, or rather, abuse the 
measures of the Government. Seditious speeches, violent 
resolutions entered into, and a flame everywhere kindled. 
At Lexington, George Nicholas, a little, indolent, drunken 
lawyer, of some talents, but no principle, loaded with 
British debts, and an elder brother of Le beau Citoyen 
Nicholas, opened the business of the meeting. He spoke 
for hours in the most inflammatory style — denounced the 
President as a perjured villain, a traitor, etc. Declared it 
as his intention to oppose all those measures of the execu- 
tive which he condemned — and not one escaped his con- 
demnation — and swore if he could not say, read and 
publish as he pleased in his own house — the Govm. of the 
United States should procure him another. Mr. Murray 
and Mr. M'Lean opposed him ably. The former was 
heard without insult, but the latter was forced to take 
shelter in a house from the mobility. Upwards of 1000 
persons were present at the Lexington meeting." 

Such demonstrations served to show the trend of pub- 
lic opinion, but it was clearly understood by the Demo- 
cratic leaders of Kentucky that the only action likely to 
produce real results was action by the State as a political 
unit. In the " Kentucky Gazette" of August 22, 1798, an 
article signed " Philo-Agis," explicitly advises this course. 



THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS 227 

"My plan is this," it says, "let the legislature of Kentucky 
be immediately convened by the Governor, let them pass 
resolutions praying for a repeal of every obnoxious and 
unconstitutional act of Congress." 

This was a suggestion right in line with public opinion, 
and would probably have been carried out promptly had 
it not been for the fact that George Nicholas was out of 
public life, and, although quite willing, as his effort at 
Lexington had shown, to use his gifts as a public speaker 
against the obnoxious laws, he was not disposed to shoulder 
the burden of such an undertaking,^ while his young and 
ardent friend, John Breckinridge, had just set out for a 
prolonged visit to Virginia.^ 

Breckinridge had taken a prominent part in a number 
of the mass meetings called to denounce the Alien and Se- 
dition laws, and, although leaving Kentucky for a short 
period, had no intention of giving up the fight. While 
at Botetourt, he sent a letter to Caleb Wallace, a member 
of the Kentucky Legislature, urging him to prepare a set 
of resolutions against these laws, and to present them to 
the Legislature at the earliest possible moment. The letter 
was not delivered for some two or three weeks after it 
should have reached its destination, and then Caleb Wal- 
lace modestly declined the honor of "drafting any thing 
of so great importance." ^ 

iWarfield's "Kentucky Resolutions of 1798," p. 47. 

a John Breckinridge was born in Augusta County, Virginia, on December 3, 
1760, but at an early age was taken by his father to his new home in Botetourt 
County, near Fincastle. In 1785 he settled in Albemarle County where he 
practiced law until 1793, when he moved to Lexington, Kentucky. From there 
he went to "Cabell's Dale," Fayette County, a short distance from Lexington, 
where he resided until his death in 1806. For biographical sketch, see Collins, 
II, pp. 98-100; Warfield's "Kentucky Resolutions of 1798," Chap. Ill, etc. 

3 From letter of Caleb Wallace to John Breckinridge, dated, Lexington, 



228 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

It mattered little, however, for, before his answer was 
penned, Breckinridge had gone on to Albemarle County, 
Virginia, where his plans for denouncing the Alien and 
Sedition laws, through the medium of the Kentucky Leg- 
islature, received the encouragement and cooperation of 
Jefferson himself, whom all Democrats, even then, rever- 
enced as the founder of their political party. 

Jefferson, upon the adjournment of Congress, in July, 
had returned to Monticello, cherishing plans similar to 
those occupying the thoughts of Breckinridge.^ There 
was, however, this difference in the points of view of the 
two men. What Breckinridge proposed was to check 
Federal encroachments upon the reserved rights of the 
States; while the Vice President designed, by the resolu- 
tions which he was contemplating, to make a political 
stroke which should cause the American people to see the 
Federalist party as he saw it, and to expel them from the 
control of the government. Early in October, 1798, Mr. 
Jefferson wrote to W. C. Nicholas of Virginia,^ " I entirely 
approve of the confidence you have reposed in Mr. 
Breckinridge, as he possesses mine entirely. I had im- 
agined it better these resolutions should have originated 
with North Carolina, but perhaps the late changes in their 
representation may indicate some doubt whether they 
would have passed. In that case, it is better they should 
come from Kentucky." This clearly implies that Jeffer- 
son and W. C. Nicholas had already arranged plans for a 
set of resolutions, and that Breckinridge's account of con- 
ditions in Kentucky had convinced Jefferson that the 

Ky., November 5, 1798. Quoted in Warfield's " Kentucky Resolutions of 1798," 
pp. 147-148. 

1 Schouler, I, p. 408. 

2 A brother of George Nicholas of Kentucky. 



THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS 229 

Legislature of that new Commonwealth would be a safe 
place to launch them. The next sentence includes Madi- 
son in the scheme: "I understand," he continues, "that 
you intend soon to go as far as Mr. Madison's. You 
know I have no secrets from him. I wish him, therefore, 
to be consulted as to these resolutions." 

How many interviews occurred between Jefferson and 
Breckinridge before a definite plan of cooperation was 
reached, we have no means of determining; but we fortu- 
nately possess, from Jefferson's own pen, a detailed ac- 
count of the conference at which the final plan of campaign 
was arranged. The letter containing this account, although 
written by Jefferson for the purpose of settling beyond 
dispute the question of the authorship of the Kentucky 
Resolutions of 1798, has produced great confusion, due to 
the fact that Thomas Jefferson Randolph, in sorting the 
papers of his illustrious grandfather, while preparing the 
first edition of Jefferson's works,^ came upon a copy of the 
letter, without the name of the addressee. By some process 
of reasoning known only to himself, he decided that it must 
have been addressed to a son of George Nicholas, and so 
embodied it in the Fourth Volume of his edition (page 344), 
with the statement that it was addressed " To Nich- 
olas, Esquire," not caring to decide to which of George 
Nicholas' sons it had been written. In this form, the letter 
was first given to the public, thus laying the foundation of 
the long contested error, that George Nicholas v/as the mover 
of the Resolutions of 1798, an error which a careful exami- 
nation of any of the local papers of the period would have 

1 Charlottesville, Virginia, 1829, 4 vols., under title, "Memoir, Correspond- 
ence, and Miscellanies of Thomas Jefferson, edited by T. J. Randolph." The 
London edition had the title changed to, "Memoirs, Correspondence, and pri- 
vate papers of Thomas Jefferson." 



230 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

disclosed.^ When the original text of the letter was 
finally discovered among the papers of the late W. C. 
P. Breckinridge, of Lexington, Kentucky, it was found 
to be addressed to J. Cabell Breckinridge, of Frank- 
fort,^ thus making it perfectly evident that Jefferson's 
remarks concerned, not George Nicholas, but John 
Breckinridge. In view of which facts, it seems wise 
to present Jefferson's account of the historic confer- 
ence which planned the resolutions, in the form of a 
facsimile reproduction of this much discussed letter, 
in order that no room for doubt may be left in any 
mind.^ 

The resolutions, here referred to as drawn by Jefferson, 
are not identical with those subsequently passed by the 
Kentucky Legislature, and, in view of the historic im- 
portance of the subject, I venture to insert them entire. 

1 This error appears in the following important works, and in many others 
of less importance: (o) Von Hoist, " Constitutional History of the United States," 
1889 Ed., I, p. 144, note No. 2; (b) Randall's "Jefferson," 1858 Ed., H, p. 448; 
(c) " Jefferson's Works," 1854 Ed., VH, pp. 229-230, publishes the letter as 

addressed "To Nicholas"; {d) McMaster, "History of the People of 

the United States," II, p. 419; (e) Hildreth's "History of U. S., Second Series," 
II, pp. 272-276, etc. 

3 The address was fortunately written on the reverse side of the sheet con- 
taining the letter. 

3 I am indebted to Mr. Desha Breckinridge of Lexington, Ky., and to his 
sister. Dean Breckinridge of the University of Chicago, for permission to use 
the Breckinridge papers, and for the privilege of reproducing this letter, which 
has been thus reproduced once before, but not so as to make it generally ac- 
cessible. It appeared in the "Southern Bivouac" for March, 1886, and with 
that reproduction appeared an able article by Col. R. T. Durrett, setting forth, 
for the first time, the clear proof that John Breckinridge was the mover and 
part author of the "Kentucky Resolutions of 1798." The two following num- 
bers of the same magazine contain articles by the same author, amplifying the 
argument. The same general line of argument was adopted in Warfield's 
"Kentucky Resolutions of 1798," which appeared the following year, 1887, 
much new and valuable material being added. 










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regarding the Kentucky Resolutions 

'p"Auud by courtesy of Mr. Desha Breckenridge, of Lexington, Kentucky, and his sister, Dean Brecken- 
ridge, of the University of Chicago. 



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THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS 



231 



The following is a copy of Jefferson's draft, found among 
his papers, after his death, and certified to by his executor, 
Thomas Jefferson Randolph, as a true and exact tran- 
script.^ 

The Jefferson Resolutions 

Resolved, That the several States composing the United 
States of America, are not united on the principle of the 
unlimited submission to the General Government; but 
that by a compact under the style and title of a Constitu- 
tion for the United States, and bf amendments thereto, 
they constituted a General Government for special pur- 
poses, delegated to that Government certain definite pow- 
ers, reserving each State to itself, the residuary mass of 
right to their own self-government; and that whensoever 
the General Government assumes undelegated powers, 
its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force; that 
to this compact, each State acceded as a State, and is an 
integral party; its co-States forming as to itself, the other 
party; that the Government created by this compact, was 
not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the 
powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its 
discretion and not the Constitution, the measure of its 
powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among' 
powers having no common judge, each party has an equal 
right to judge for itself; as well of infractions as of the 
mode and measure of redress. 

2d. Resolved, That the Constitution of the United 

1 "Two copies of these Resolutions are preserved among the manuscripts, 
both in his own handwriting," says the editor of the 1856 edition of " Jeiierson's 
Works," IX, p. 464, note, "one is a rough draft, and the other very neatly and 
carefully prepared." For history of the copy used in this volume, see '" Southern 
Bivouac," May, 1886, pp. 762-763, article by Col. R. T. Durrett. It is in the 
Durrett collection and is undoubtedly authentic. 



232 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

States having delegated to Congress a power to punish 
treason, counterfeiting the securities and current coin of 
the United States; piracies and felonies committed on 
the high seas, and offences against the law of nations, 
and no other crimes whatsoever; and it being true as a 
general principle, and one of the amendments to the 
Constitution having also declared that, "the powers not 
delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor 
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States 
respectively, or the people; therefore the act of Congress 
passed on the 14th July, 1798, and entitled, An act in 
addition to the act, entitled an act for the punishment of 
certain crimes against the United States;" as also the 
act passed by them on the day of June, 1798, en- 
titled "An act to punish frauds committed on the Bank 
of the United States;" (and all other their acts which as- 
sume to create, define or punish crimes, other than those 
so enumerated in the Constitution) are altogether void and 
of no force, and that the pov/er to create, define and punish 
such other crimes is reserved, and of right appertains 
solely and exclusively to the respective States, each within 
its own territory. 

3d. Resolved^ That it is true as a general principle and 
is also expressly declared, by one of the amendments to 
the Constitution that the powers not delegated to the 
United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it 
to the States, were reserved to the States respectively, 
or to the people; and that no power over the freedom of 
religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press be- 
ing delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, 
nor prohibited by it to the States, all lawful powers 
respecting the same did of right remain, and were reserved 



THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS 233 

to the States or the people; that thus was manifested their 
determination to retain themselves the right of judging 
how far the licentiousness of speech and of the press may 
be abridged without lessening their useful freedom, and 
how far those abuses which can not be separated from 
their use should be tolerated, rather than the use be 
destroyed; and thus also they guarded against all abridge- 
ment by the United States of the freedom of religious 
opinions and exercises and retained to themselves the 
right of protecting the same; as this State, by law passed 
on the general demand of its citizens, had already protected 
them from all human restraints or interference, and 
that in addition to this general principle and express 
declaration, another and more special provision has been 
made by one of the amendments to the Constitution, which 
expressly declares that "Congress shall make no law re- 
specting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the 
free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech 
or of the press;" thereby guarding in the same sentence 
and under the same words the freedom of religion, of 
speech, and of the press; insomuch that whatever violates 
either, throws down the sanctuary which covers the others, 
and that libels, falsehood, and defamation equally with 
heresy and false religion, are withheld from the cogni- 
zance of federal tribunals, that therefore the act of Con- 
gress of the United States, passed on the 14th day of 
July, 1798, entitled "An act in addition to an act, entitled 
an act for the punishment of certain crimes against the 
United States," which does abridge the freedom of the 
press, is not law, but is altogether void and of no force. 

4th. Resolved f That alien friends are under the juris- 
diction and protection of the laws of the State wherein 



234 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

they are; that no power over them has been delegated to 
the United States; nor prohibited to the individual States, 
distinct from their power over citizens; and it being true 
as a general principle, and one of the amendments to the 
Constitution having also declared, that "the powers not 
delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor 
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States 
respectively, or to the people," the act of the Congress 

of the United States, passed on the day of July, 

1798, entitled "An act concerning aliens," which assumes 
powers over alien friends not delegated by the Constitu- 
tion, is not law, but is altogether void and of no force. 

5th. Resolved, That, in addition to the general prin- 
ciple, as well as the express declaration, that powers 
not delegated are reserved, another and more special 
provision, inserted in the Constitution from abundant 
caution, has declared that "the migration or importation 
of such persons as any of the States now existing shall 
think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the 
Congress prior to the year 1808;" that this commonwealth 
does admit the emigration of alien friends, described 
as the subjects of the said act concerning aliens; that 
a provision against prohibiting their migration, is a 
provision against all acts equivalent thereto, as it would 
be nugatory; that, to remove them when emigrated, 
is equivalent to a prohibition of their migration; and is, 
therefore, contrary to the said provision of the Constitution 
and void. 

6th. Resolved, That the imprisonment of a person 
under the protection of the laws of this commonwealth, 
on his failure to obey the simple order of the President 
to depart out of the United States, as is undertaken by 



THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS 235 

the said act, entitled "An act concerning aliens," is 
contrary to the Constitution, one amendment of which 
has provided that "no person shall be deprived of liberty 
without due process of law;" and that, another having 
provided that, "in all criminal prosecutions the accused 
shall enjoy the right to a public trial by an impartial jury; 
to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; 
to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have 
compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor; 
and to have the assistance of counsel for his defence." 
The same act undertaking to authorize the President of the 
United States to remove a person out of the United States 
who is under the protection of the law, on his own suspi- 
cion, without accusation, without jury, without public trial, 
without confrontation of the witnesses against him, with- 
out hearing witnesses in his favor, without defence, with- 
out counsel, is contrary to these provisions, also, of the 
Constitution; is, therefore, not law, but utterly void and of 
no force; that, transferring the power of judging any per- 
son, who is under the protection of the law, from the courts 
to the President of the United States, as is undertaken by 
the same act concerning aliens, is against the article of the 
Constitution, which provides that "the judicial power of 
the United States shall be vested in courts, the judges of 
which shall hold their offices during good behavior;" and 
that the said act is void for that reason also; and it is fur- 
ther to be noted that, this transfer of judiciary power is to 
that magistrate of the General Government who already 
possesses all the executive, and a negative, on all the legis- 
lative powers. 

yth. Resolved, That the construction applied by the 
General Government (as is evidenced by sundry of their 



236 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

proceedings) to those parts of the Constitution of the 
United States, which delegate to Congress a power 
"To lay and collect taxes, duties, imports, and excises, 
to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and 
general welfare of the United States, and to make all laws 
which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into exe- 
cution the powers vested by the Constitution in the Gov- 
ernment of the United States, or in any department or 
offices thereof," goes to the destruction of all the limits 
prescribed to their power by the Constitution; that words 
meant by that instrument to be subsidiary only to the exe- 
cution of limited powers, ought not to be so construed as 
themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part to be so 
taken as to destroy the whole residue of that instrument; 
that the proceedings of the General Government under 
color of these articles, will be a fit and necessary subject 
of revisal and correction, at a time of greater tranquility, 
while those specified in the preceding resolutions call for 
immediate redress. 

8th. Resolved, That a Committee of Conference and 
Correspondence be appointed, who shall have in charge 
to communicate the preceding resolutions to the legis- 
lature of the several States; to assure them that this com- 
monwealth continues in the same esteem for their friend- 
ship and union which it has manifested from that moment 
at which a common danger first suggested a common 
union; that it considers union, for specified national 
purposes, and particularly for those specified in their 
late federal compact, to be friendly to the peace, happiness, 
and prosperity of all the States; that faithful to that 
compact, according to the plain intent and meaning in 
which it was understood and acceded to by the several 



THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS 237 

parties, it is sincerely anxious for its preservation; that 
it does also believe that to take from the States all the 
powers of self-government, and transfer them to a general 
and consolidated government, without regard to the 
special delegations and reservations solemnly agreed to 
in that compact, is not for the peace, happiness, or pros- 
perity of these States; and that, therefore, this common- 
wealth is determined, as it doubts not its co-States are, 
to submit to undelegated, and consequently unlimited 
powers in no man or body of men, on earth; that in cases 
of an abuse of the delegated powers, the members of 
the General Government being chosen by the people, a 
change by the people would be the constitutional remedy; 
but where powers are assumed which have not been dele- 
gated, a nullification of the act is the right remedy; that 
every State has a natural right, in cases not within the 
compact, (^casus non foederis) to nullify of their own 
authority all assumptions of power by others within 
their limits; that without their right they would be un- 
der the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whatsoever 
might exercise this right of judgment for them; that, 
nevertheless this commonwealth, from motives of regard 
and respect for, its co-States, has wished to communicate 
with them on the subject; that with them alone it is proper 
to communicate, they alone being parties to the compact, 
and solely authorized to judge in the last resort of the 
powers exercised under it, Congress being not a party, 
but merely the creature of the compact, and subject, as 
to its assumption of power, to the final judgment of 
those by whom, and for whose use, itself and its powers 
were all created and modified; that, if the act before 
specified should stand, these conclusions would flow 



238 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

from them, that the General Government may place any 
act they think proper on the list of crimes, and punish 
it themselves, whether enumerated or not enumerated by 
the Constitution as cognizable by them; that they may 
transfer its cognizance to the President, or any other 
person, who may himself be the accuser, counsel, judge, 
and jury, whose suspicions may be the evidence, his 
order the sentence, his officer the executioner, and his 
breast the sole record of the transactions; that a very 
numerous and valuable description of the inhabitants of 
these States being, by this precedent, reduced as outlaws 
to the absolute dominion of one man, and the barrier 
of the Constitution thus swept away for us all, no ram- 
part now remains against the passions, and the power 
of a majority in Congress to protect from a like expor- 
tation, or other more grievous punishment, the minority 
of the same body, the legislatures, judges, governors, 
and counsellors of the States, nor their other peace- 
able inhabitants, who may venture to reclaim the con- 
stitutional rights and hberties of the States and people, 
or who for other causes, good or bad, may be obnoxious 
to the views, or marked by the suspicion of the President 
or be thought dangerous to his or their elections, or other 
interests, public or personal; that the friendless alien has 
indeed been selected as the safest subject of a first experi- 
ment, but the citizen will soon follow; rather, has already 
followed; for already has a sedition act marked him as its 
prey; that these and successive acts of the same character, 
unless arrested at the threshold, necessarily drive tliese 
States into revolution and blood, and will furnish new 
calumnies against republican governments, and new 
pretexts for those who wish it to be believed that man can 



THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS 239 

not be governed but by a rod of iron; that it would be a 
dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our 
choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights; 
that confidence is every where the parent of despotism. 
Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in 
confidence; it is jealousy, and not confidence which pre- 
scribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we 
are obliged to trust with power; that our Constitution has 
accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our 
confidence may go. And let the honest advocate of con- 
fidence read the alien and sedition acts, and say if the Con- 
stitution has not been wise in fixing limits to the Govern- 
ment it created, and whether we should be wise in destroy- 
ing those limits. Let him say what the Government is, 
if it be not a tyranny, which the men of our choice have 
conferred on our President, and the President of our choice 
has assented to and accepted, over the friendly strangers 
to whom the mild spirit of our country and its laws had 
pledged hospitality and protection; that the men of our 
choice have more respected the bare suspicions of the Pres- 
ident, than the solid rights of innocence, the claims of 
justification, the sacred force of truth, and the forms and 
substance of law and justice; in questions of power, 
then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but 
bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Con- 
stitution; that this commonwealth does therefore, call 
on its co-States for an expression of their sentiments on 
the acts concerning aliens, and for the punishment of 
certain crimes hereinbefore specified; plainly declaring 
whether these acts are, or are not, authorized by the 
federal compact. 

And it doubts not that their sense will be so enounced 



240 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

as to prove their attachment unaltered to limited govern- 
ment, whether general or particular; and that the rights 
and liberties of their co-States will be exposed to no dan- 
gers by remaining embarked in a common bottom with 
their own; that they will concur with this commonwealth 
in considering the said acts so palpably against the Con- 
stitution as to amount to an undisguised declaration that 
that compact is not meant to be the measure of the powers 
of the general government; but that it will proceed in the 
exercise over these States of all powers whatsoever; that 
they will view this as seizing the rights of the States, and 
consolidating them in the hands of the general govern- 
ment, with a power assumed to bind the States [not merely 
in the cases made federal, (casus foederis^ ] but in all 
cases whatsoever, by laws made, not with their consent, 
but by others against their consent; that this would be to 
surrender the form of government we have chosen, and to 
live under one deriving its pov/ers from its own will and 
not from our authority; and that the co-States recurring 
to their natural right, in cases not made federal, will con- 
cur in declaring these acts void and of no force, and will 
each take measures of its own for providing that neither 
these acts, nor any others of the general government, 
not plainly and intentionally authorized by the Consti- 
tution, shall be exercised vv^ithin their respective terri- 
tories. 

9th. Resolved^ That the said committee be authorized to 
communicate, by writing or personal conferences, at any 
times or places whatever, with any person or persons who 
may be appointed by any one or more of the co-States to 
correspond or confer with them; and that they lay their 
proceedings before the next session of assembly. 



THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS 241 

Richmond, March 21, 1832. 
I have carefully compared this copy with the MSS. of 
these resolutions in the handwriting of Thomas Jefferson, 
and find it a correct and full copy. 

Th. Jefferson Randolph. 

Armed with these resolutions, Breckinridge returned 
to his home and, early in November, 1798, appeared at 
Frankfort for the meeting of the Legislature. 

In his opening message of November 7th, Governor 
Garrard struck squarely at the hated Federal statutes; 
quite as if he were familiar with what had transpired at 
the recent Monticello conference. 

"Constituting, as this State does," he said, "a branch 
of the Federal Union, it necessarily becomes a sharer in 
the general prosperity or adversity: and, being deeply 
interested in the conduct of the National Government, 
must have a right to applaud or to censure that Govern- 
ment, when applause or censure becomes its due. 

" It cannot, therefore, be improper to draw your at- 
tention to sundry acts of the Federal Legislature, which 
having violated the Constitution of the United States — 
which having vested the President with high and dan- 
gerous powers, and intrenched upon the prerogatives of 
the individual States, have created an uncommon agita- 
tion of mind in different parts of the Union, and partic- 
ularly among the citizens of this Commonwealth. 

"The Act concerning Aliens is calculated to produce 
effects most strongly marked with injustice and oppres- 
sion; because the exercise of the power given therein, 
depends upon the discretion, or, I may say, the caprice 
of an individual. 

"Nothing but a general prevalence of hypocrisy, among 

Kentucky — 16 



242 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

that numerous class of persons on whom this law is meant 
to operate can prevent consequences so much deprecated : 
for they must affect an approbation of all the measures of 
Government, whatever be their genuine sentiments con- 
cerning them, or, by an honest disclosure of their real 
opinion, expose themselves to be ruined by banishment, 
on the secret representations of some interested and of- 
ficious informer, and without enjoying even the shadow of 
that trial by jury so dear to freemen. 

"Nor can the same law be regarded as anything less 
than an artful, though effectual evasion of the provisions 
of that article of the Federal Constitution which with- 
holds from Congress the power of prohibiting the mi- 
gration as well as importation of such persons as the States 
then existing should think proper to admit, a provision 
of the highest importance to those States whose popula- 
tion is not full, and who have a strong interest in welcom- 
ing the industrious stranger from every part of the world. 

"Another law the operation of which is more exten- 
sive ... is entitled, 'An Act in Addition to the Act En- 
titled " An Act for the Punishment of Certain Crimes 
Against the United States;'" which by fencing round the 
different branches of Government, in their official capacity, 
with penal terrors, in a manner before unknown, hath 
created a new crime against the United States, in a case 
where an interference on the part of the Legislature was 
rendered unconstitutional, by that clause which forbids 
the enacting of any law abridging the freedom of speech 
or of the press. 

"Any violation of the Constitution once acquiesced in, 
subverts the great palladium of our rights, and no barrier 
remains to oppose the introduction of despotism." 



THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS 243 

After referring to the war which " hangs over us ... . 
a war by which we cannot possibly derive any advantage," 
and warning his hearers that Kentucky is being represented 
in the East as on the point of "withdrawing herself from 
the Union," he advises the Legislature to declare fully the 
firm attachment of Kentucky to the Union, and her deter- 
mination to support the government in every measure au- 
thorized by the Constitution. 

"Against all unconstitutional laws and impolitic proceed- 
ings," however, he urges them to enter a vigorous protest. ^ 

So closely does the suggestion laid down in this message 
coincide with the text of the proposed resolutions that we 
are at a loss to tell whether the Governor had seen Jeffer- 
son's draft before writing his message, or whether the strik- 
ing resemblance between the two was merely accidental. ^ 

At any rate, the Governor's advice was followed, and 
on November 8, the day after the delivery of the message, 
John Breckinridge, who, by a sort of preestablished har- 
mony, had been appointed Chairman of a Committee of 
three, to whom the Governor's message was referred, 
presented to the House, in Committee of the Whole, a 

1 Text of this important message in "Kentucky Gazette," November 14, 
1798. The next number contains the answers of the House and the Senate. 

2 The conclusion that Breckinridge had shown his projected resolutions to 
the Governor before this message was written is almost irresistible, in view of the 
fact that the Governor's message follows the specious argument, which appears 
in the Fifth Article of the Kentucky Resolutions, and also of Jefferson's draft. 
This argument pronounces the act concerning alien friends void, because it, in 
effect, prohibits the migration of aliens into the States, in violation of that clause 
of the Federal Constitution which expressly prohibits Congress from prohibiting, 
prior to the year 1808, the "migration or importation of such persons as any of 
the States now existing shall think proper to admit." This clause, as everyone 
knew, referred only to the importation of slaves, and it scarcely seems likely 
that this clumsy impeachment of the Administration laws should have been 
drawn in precisely the same form, by two men working independently. 



244 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

series of nine resolutions, the first seven of which were, 
with a few verbal changes, exactly as Jefferson had v/rit- 
ten them, though the eighth and ninth were radically dif- 
ferent from those numbered eight and nine of the Jefferson 
draft. This shows, of course, that Breckinridge, after re- 
ceiving the resolutions from Jefferson, had made use of 
his right to alter them in such a way as to make them 
fully meet his own views, and conform to what he under- 
stood to have been agreed upon at the Monticello con- 
ference. 

As these are the resolutions actually passed by the 
Kentucky Legislature, the famous Kentucky Resolu- 
tions of 1798, the original foundation upon which the 
nullifiers of later date claimed to have reared their super- 
structure of State sovereignty and nullification, and as 
inexact texts have frequently been made use of by politi- 
cal writers upon the subject,^ it seems advisable again to 
resort to fac-simile reproduction. The following is taken 
from one of a thousand copies sent out by order of the 
Legislature immediately after their adoption. ^ 

These resolutions v/ere considered in the Committee 
of the Whole for two days and, on the loth of November, 
were reported to the House. They excited little debate, 
as the sentiment was almost unanimous in favor of them. 

1 Even Elliot's "Debates" strangely omits from the first resolution of the 
series the significant words, "its co-states forming as to itself, the other party," 
which should follow the words, "That to this compact each state acceded as a 
state, and is an integral party." It also gives November ig, 1798, instead of 
November 16, 1798, as the date of Governor Garrard's approval of the Resolu- 
tions. Elliot's "Debates," 1861 Ed., IV, p. 544. 

2 The original is in the Durrett collection. For its history and proofs of its 
authenticity, see Col. R. T. Durrett's article in the "Southern Bivouac" of 
May, 1886, pp. 762-763. Another copy, accompanied by a letter of Harry 
Toulmin, Governor Garrard's Secretary of State, is preserved in the State 
Department of Massachusetts. 



THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS 245 

The staunch FederaHst, WilHam Murray, of Franklin 
County, exerted all his forensic power to create a senti- 
ment against them: but to no purpose. He pointed out, 
in a convincing manner, the fact that the people of the 
nation, and not the State Legislatures, are the legally con- 
stituted censors of the Federal Government. The people 
of the nation, the several individuals composing the States, 
he declared, not the States themselves, are the parties 
to the Federal compact. "Is there any clause, either in 
the Federal, or in the State Constitution, which delegates 
the power reserved by the people to their State Leg- 
islature. . . . Because the Constitution of the United 
States has been violated, will you violate your own Con- 
stitution .? Where is the clause which has given you 
censorship .? Where is the clause which has authorized 
you to repeal or declare void, the laws of the United 
States ^ . . . It is the people only that have a right to 
inquire whether Congress hath exceeded its powers; it is 
the people only that have a right to appeal for redress. 
To the General Assembly is delegated merely State powers. 
The authority to determine that a law is void is lodged 
with the Judiciary" of the United States. 

In such an audience, the overwhelming sentiment was 
too obvious for an elaborate defence of the resolutions to 
be necessary, and Breckinridge's reply is the reply of a 
man who knows that his case is already won. He felt 
that he was occupying historic ground, and presenting an 
interpretation of the Federal compact which was generally 
accepted, when he said, "I consider the co-States to be 
alone parties to the Federal compact, and solely authorized 
to judge, in the last resort, of the power exercised under 
that compact, Congress being not a party, but merely the 



246 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

creature of the compact, and subject, as to its assumptions 
of power, to the final judgment of those by whom and for 
whose use, itself and its powers were all created. I do not 
consider Congress, therefore, the lords and masters of the 
State, but as their servants. . . . And after all, who are 
the Judiciary, the body in which the Gentleman places 
such unbounded confidence ? Who are they, but a part 
of the servants of the people, created by the Federal com- 
pact ? And if the servants of the people have a right, is it 
good reasoning to say that the people, by whom and for 
whose benefit both they and the Government were created, 
are destitute of that right ? Or that the people's represent- 
atives, emanating immediately from the people, have noth- 
ing to do but to behold in silence the most flagrant viola- 
tions of their rights, and bow in silence to any power that 
may attempt to oppress them ? What line of conduct, 
then, does the Gentleman recommend ^ If the States be 
already reduced to that deplorable situation, that they 
have no right to remonstrate with men who may meditate 
their annihilation, it is time that we should retire to our 
homes and mournfully prepare for a fate which we are 
destined to submit to. 

" But the Committee, I trust, are actuated by other and 
nobler principles, and instead of taking exceptions . . . 
to the jurisdiction of this committee, will take up the 
resolutions and examine them, one by one. Should they 
deem those laws constitutional, I doubt not they will re- 
ject the resolutions; but if they think otherwise, they can- 
not object to so moderate and peaceable a measure as that 
of addressing the sister States.^ We do not pretend to set 

1 "Addressing the sister States" is vastly different from nullifying a Federal 
law, so often said to be the teaching of Breckinridge's "Resolutions." 



THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS 247 

ourselves up as censors for the Union; but we will firmly 
express our own opinions, and call upon the other States 
to examine their political situation. I do aver . . . that 
the great political truths contained in those Resolutions 
cannot be controverted until republicanism and its votaries 
become extinct."^ 

The resolutions were adopted the same day, Novem- 
ber, loth, without a division, and practically, without 
amendment.^ They were then sent to the Senate, where 
they were unanimously adopted and, three days later, 
November 16, Governor Garrard approved them. 

Thus, without excitement, and almost without oppo- 
sition, did the Kentucky Legislature adopt the most sig- 
nificant and far-reaching measure recorded in the annals of 
the Commonwealth, for not only did it constitute an impor- 
tant step in Jefferson's well-laid plans for wresting the con- 
trol of the Federal Government from the hands of the tri- 
umphant Federalists, but it established the starting point 
for the aggressive doctrine of State sovereignty and nul- 
lification. 

It established only the starting point, however, for from 
all the facts in the case, it is quite evident that neither 
Breckinridge, nor the Kentucky Legislature which passed 
these resolutions, intended to set up the contention that 
a single State may nullify a Federal law. The word nul- 

1 We have, of course, no verbatim reports of any of the speeches, but full 
summaries of those of Murray and Breckinridge are preserved in the newspapers 
of the period, e. g., "Frankfort Palladium," of November 13 and 20, 1798. 

2 The amendments agreed to were as follows: "In the last line but one of 
the Sixth Resolution, before the word 'negative,' it was agreed to insert 'quali- 
fied.' In the Ninth Resolution, twenty-fifth line, after the word 'are,' it was 
agreed to insert 'tamely'; and in the Ninth Resolution, sixty-seventh line, for 
'necessarily,' it was agreed to substitute 'may tend to.' " The "Frankfort Pal- 
ladium," November 13, 1798. 



248 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

lify nowhere appears in the document, and the idea of 
nuUification by a single State is carefully excluded. 

It is true that Jefferson, in his draft of the resolutions, 
explicitly states, "that every State has a natural right, in 
cases not within the compact, {casus non foederis^ to nul- 
lify of their own authority all assumptions of power by 
others within their limits;" ^ but this clause Breckinridge 
removed from the resolutions before introducing them 
into the Kentucky Legislature, and it never came before 
that body. The same is true in the case of the words, of 
similar import, with which the eighth article of the Jeffer- 
son draft closed: viz.: "that the co-States recurring to 
their natural right, in cases not made federal, will concur 
in declaring these acts void and of no force, and will each 
take measures of its own for providing that neither these 
acts, nor any others of the general government, not plainly 
and intentionally authorized by the Constitution, shall be 
exercised within their respective territories." ^ Had Breck- 
inridge contemplated proclaiming any such doctrine as 
that so clearly expressed in these words of Jefferson, he 
would certainly have retained them, as he did retain the 
most of what Jefferson had prepared for his use. Instead, 
he carefully excluded them, and in the last clause of his 
Ninth Resolution, asked, "that the Co-States recurring to 
their natural right in cases not made federal, will concur 
in declaring these acts void and of no force, and will each 
unite with this Commonwealth in requesting their repeal 
at the next session of Congress." In the debate over the 
pending resolutions, Breckinridge made clear what kind 
of nullification he had in mind, and it was in the light of 

1 " Jefferson Draft," Article 8. 

2 Ibid., Article 8, final clause. 



THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS 249 

this explanation that the Kentucky Legislature adopted 
the resolutions. 

"If," he said, "upon the representations of the States 
from which they derive their powers, they [Congress] 
should, nevertheless, attempt to enforce them [the acts 
in question], I hesitate not to declare it as my opinion, 
that it is then the right and duty of the several States to 
nullify these acts and to protect their citizens from their 
operation. But I hope and trust such an event will never 
happen, and that Congress will always have sufficient 
virtue, wisdom, and prudence, upon the representation of 
a majority of the States, to expunge all obnoxious laws 
whatever." yy^'^ 

The inference is clear that Breckinridge, and with him, J'^ , ^cyy^^ 
the Kentucky Legislature, intended these resolutions tol^^^^ ^,. 

mean that if a majority of the States deemed an act ^/Jy^^^I ' 
of Congress unconstitutional and oppressive, and peti-/'/^ 
tioned Congress for its repeal, and Congress still per-'-""] ^ 
sisted in the obnoxious law, it would then be the duty of 
that majority of States to declare that law void, and to 
protect their citizens from its operation. To read more 
than this into the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 is to vio- 
late fair and equitable canons of interpretation, and this 
is a very different doctrine from the doctrine that a single 
State may nullify a Federal law.^ 

It is, therefore, fair to say that, while the Jefferson draft 
of the resolutions does clearly embody the doctrine of 
nullification, exemplified by South Carolina in 1832, no 
such doctrine can be found in the Ketitucky Resolutions of 
lygS. They clearly assert the doctrine of States' rights, 

1 For elaboration of this line of argument, see "Southern Bivouac" of May, 
1886, article by Col. R. T. Durrett. 



250 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

but they look only to the repeal of unconstitutional laws 
passed by the Federal Government; while the Jefferson 
draft looks clearly to the nullification of such acts, and that 
by a single State of the Union. The Jefferson draft, there- 
fore, and not the Kentucky Resolutions, must stand as the 
logical antecedent of the South Carolina doctrine of nulli- 
fication by a single State. But the Kentucky Resolutions 
of 1798, undoubtedly stand as the classical exposition of 
the compact theory of the Constitution, and, as such, they 
remained for two generations the standard of orthodoxy 
for the Democratic party. 

Having thus proclaimed her views with reference to 
State and Nation, Kentucky waited to learn what response 
the co-States would make to her bold resolutions, and it 
was not long before these replies began to arrive.^ 

The little State of Delaware was the first to answer, 
curtly characterizing the Kentucky Resolutions, "as a 
very unjustifiable interference with the General Govern- 
ment, and constituted authorities of the United States, 
and of dangerous tendency, and, therefore, not fit subjects 
for further consideration of this General Assembly." 

Rhode Island replied that while, in her opinion, "the 
Sedition and Alien Laws (so called), . . . are within 
the powers delegated to Congress," the Constitution 
"vests in the Federal courts, exclusively, and in the 
Supreme Court of the United States, ultimately, the au- 
thority of deciding on the constitutionality of any act or 
law of the Congress of the United States." 

Massachusetts sent a long argument attempting to 

1 Full text of all the replies, Elliot's "Debates," 1861 Ed., IV, pp. S32-539; 
Niles "Register," Supplement to Vol. XLIII, Baltimore, Franklin Press, May, 
1833- 



THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS 25 1 

prove that the Alien and Sedition laws were not only 
authorized by the Constitution, but demanded by the 
pressing needs of the times. She also pointed out that to 
the Supreme Court alone, is given the right to decide 
questions of constitutionality. 

New York denounced the Kentucky Resolutions as, 
"inflammatory and pernicious," and disclaimed any 
right "to supervise the acts of the General Govern- 
ment." 

Over two months then elapsed before the fifth reply, 
that of Connecticut, was received, and it was also an un- 
compromising condemnation. 

It was followed, a few weeks later, by a curt and some- 
what menacing resolution from New Hampshire, declaring 
"a firm resolution to maintain and defend the Constitu- 
tion of the United States . . . against every aggression, 
either foreign or domestic;" and pointing out that the 
duty of deciding upon the constitutionality of Federal laws, 
"is properly and exclusively confided to the Judicial De- 
partment." 

The last reply was from the new State of Vermont. 
It declared the Resolutions "unconstitutional in their 
nature, and dangerous in their tendency," and repeated 
the statement that it belongs not to State Legislatures, but 
to the Federal courts, to decide upon the constitutionality 
of Federal laws. 

Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, North Carolina, 
Tennessee, South Carolina and Georgia all maintained a 
discreet silence. 

Virginia, alone, of all the States of the Union, took her 
place by the side of Kentucky, not, however, by way of 
reply, but by open cooperation, as the Monticello confer- 



252 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

ence had decided she should. Madison, if not a member 
of that conference, at least was a party to its plans. He, 
like Breckinridge, had received a copy of the Jefferson 
draft for use in his own Legislature. Like Breckinridge, 
also, he had exercised the right to alter it and, in a greatly 
modified form,^ had secured its introduction into the Vir- 
ginia Legislature, where it was readily adopted. 

Although milder in tone than the preceding Resolutions 
of Kentucky, these Virginia Resolutions took much the 
same ground. "In case of a deliberate, palpable and dan- 
gerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said 
compact, the States, who are parties thereto, have the right, 
and are in duty bound, to interpose, for arresting the 
progress of the evil, and for maintaining, within their re- 
spective limits, the authorities, rights, and liberties, apper- 
taining to them." They declare that the Alien and Se- 
dition Acts are unconstitutional, but against them go only 
the length of praying the co-States, "that the necessary 
and proper measures will be taken by each for cooperating 
with this State, in maintaining unimpaired, the authorities, 
rights, and liberties, reserved to the States respectively, or 
to the people." This, likewise, is vastly different from the 
proposition that a single State alone may nullify a Federal 
law, which doctrine, although it is the logical outcome of 
Jefferson's original draft of the Resolutions of 1798, is not 

1 Madison had completely rewritten the "Resolutions" and given them to 
John Tyler to introduce into the Virginia House of Burgesses. They had been 
passed, on December 24, 1798, by the House. The Senate and the Governor 
had at once approved them, and they had been circulated just as those of Ken- 
tucky had been. Text of the "Virginia Resolutions" of 1798, Elliot's "De- 
bates," 1861 Ed., IV, pp. 528-529. For Madison's Report on the "Virginia 
Resolutions," an argument in reply to the objections urged against them by the 
various States who returned answers; Ibid., pp. 546-580, also Niles "Register," 
Supplement to Vol. XLIH. 



THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS 253 

that of either the Kentucky or the Virginia Resolutions as 
finally adopted by the Legislatures of those States. 

Although Jefferson's plan, to have the Legislatures of 
such States, as still remained Republican, pass resolutions 
censuring the Administration for the enactment of the Alien 
and Sedition Acts, had thus succeeded in only two States, 
the object which he felt to be the most important, had been 
accomplished. The country was fully aroused to the 
principles underlying the hated laws, and petitions for 
their repeal poured into Congress. These petitions were 
referred to a committee, which promptly reported ad- 
versely. The Republicans, of course, appreciated that 
this report would be passed by a party vote, but they were 
resolved to attract as much attention as possible to the 
rejection of the petitions, by vigorously debating every 
point which could be raised. The Federalists were as 
anxious to prevent debate, and to pass the report quietly. 
Jefferson, in a letter to Madison tells the story of the con- 
flict which took place in the House over the matter.^ 

"Yesterday witnessed a scandalous scene in the House 
of Representatives. It was the day for taking up the report 
of their committee against the Alien and Sedition Laws, etc. 
They held a caucus and decided that not a word should be 
spoken on their side, in answer to anything that might be 
said on the other. Gallatin took up the Alien, and Nicho- 
las,2 the Sedition Law, but after a little while of common 
silence, they began to enter into loud conversations, laugh, 
cough, etc., so that for the last hour of these gentlemen's 
speaking, they must have had the lungs of a vendue master 

1 Randall's " Jefferson," 1858 Ed., II, p. 479. The letter is dated Feb- 
ruary 26, lygg. 

2 John Nicholas, of Virginia. 



254 



KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 



to have been heard. Livingston, however, attempted to 
speak. But after a few sentences, the Speaker called him 
to order, and told him what he was saying was not to the 
question. It was impossible to proceed. The question 
was taken and carried in favor of the report, fifty-two to 
forty-eight." 

The effect of this, and of similar unwise attempts on the 
part of the Federalists to avoid the discussion of their laws, 
while, at the same time, declining to repeal them, could not 
fail to weaken their cause, and Jefferson was politician 
enough to see that publicity was given to every fact which 
could influence public opinion. "The materials now 
bearing on the public mind," he wrote, in February, 
1799,^ "will infallibly restore it to its republican sound- 
ness, in the course of the present summer, if the knowl- 
edge of the facts can only be disseminated among the 
people." 

Jefferson returned to Monticello at the close of the ses- 
sion, and at once began arranging to have Kentucky and 
Virginia repeat the declarations laid down in the resolu- 
tions of the previous year. On September 5, he wrote to 
Col. W. C. Nicholas,^ then in Kentucky, suggesting the 
line of action which he, in consultation with Madison, 
deemed it desirable that both Virginia and Kentucky 
should adopt, in reply to the opinions recently sent them 
by other States. To be silent, he argued, might seem too 
much hke placidly acquiescing in those opinions. "Vir- 
ginia and Kentucky should pursue the same track on this 

1 Jefferson to Archibald Stuart, February 13, 1799, " Jefferson's Works," 
Memorial Ed., 1903, X, p. 104. 

2 "Jefferson's Works," Memorial Ed., 1903, X, pp. 130-132. A previous 
note, dated Monticello, August 26, 1799, mentions the desire for Kentucky and 
Virginia to act together. Ibid., p. 129. 



THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS 255 

occasion." They should answer "the reasonings of such 
of the States as have ventured into the field of reason, and 
that of the Committee of Congress, taking some notice, 
too, of those States w^ho have either not answered at all, or 
answered without reasoning." They should express warm 
attachment to the Union, and declare themselves, "willing 
to look on with indulgence, and wait with patience, till 
those passions and delusions shall have passed over, which 
the Federal Government have artfully excited to cover its 
own abuses, and conceal its designs; fully confident that 
the good sense of the American people, and their attach- 
ment to those rights which we are now vindicating, will, 
before it shall be too late, rally with us, round the true 
principles of our Federal compact. . . ." 

This letter, though written to Nicholas, was, of course, 
intended for the Republican leaders of Kentucky and Vir- 
ginia, and the program therein outlined was followed at 
the opening of the Kentucky Legislature, in November, 
though the leaders showed, by the form and substance 
given to their resolution, that again, as in 1798, they had 
their own ideas as to what was best. 

The leadership in this case, as in the last, fell to John 
Breckinridge, now Speaker of the Kentucky Mouse of Rep- 
resentatives, and, in a letter to Jefferson, written several 
weeks later,^ he explains just what took place. " I took 
the liberty," he says, "by the last post, of inclosing to 
you the proceedings of our Legislature (now in Session) in 
support of their Resolutions, of the last Session, respecting 
the Alien and Sedition Laws. It was at the opening of 
the Session concluded to make no reply, but, lest an im- 

1 December 9, 1799. Quoted by Warfield, " Kentucky Resolutions of 1798," 
pp. 122-123. 



256 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

proper construction should be put on silence, we drew up 
the paper which I inclosed you. In the lower House (of 
which I am a member), there was not a dissenting voice. 
In the Senate, there was considerable division, particularly 
on that sentence which declares 'a nullification of those 
acts by the States to be the rightful remedy.' ^ It has so 
happened that what little Federal influence exists among 
us, is, at present, concentrated in the Senate. The election 
of Senators in every district under our new Constitution, 
and which must be made viva voce, by the people, instead 
of by electors, will extinguish even this little influence. 
The great mass of the people are lincontaminated and 
firm, and as all appointments now flow from the people, 
those who hold sentiments contrary to theirs, will be dis- 
carded." 

What Breckinridge does not tell is the fact that this 
document had been drawn and presented by himself. 

These Resolutions of 1799, ^° called, consist of a general 
response to the States which sent negative replies to the 
resolutions of the previous year, and a single resolution, 
firmly reasserting the principles of those former resolu- 
tions, but also containing the following nullification words, 
not found in them: 

"That the ^several states who formed that instrument 
(the Constitution), being sovereign and independent, have 
the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction; and 

1 The exact phraseology of the clause here referred to is: "That a nullifica- 
tion, by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under colour of that in- 
strument, is the rightful remedy," John Pope had tried to persuade the Senate 
to strike out the above phrase and insert in its place the words, "the right of 
remonstrating and protesting against such law, belong to the States." This 
amendment had been carried in the committee, but rejected by the Senate by a 
majority of only one, the original phrase with its clear nullification sentiment 
having been thus restored. 



THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS 257 

that a nullification, by those sovereignties, of all unau- 
thorized acts done under colour of that instrument, is the 
rightful remedy." 

Even these v^ords, it will be observed, fall far short of 
the South Carolina doctrine, or even that avowed in the 
Jefferson draft of the Resolutions of 1798. Those assert 
the right of a single State to nullify a Federal law; this, of 
"the several States who formed that instrument." It is 
the difference between one and many: or, if we interpret 
the meaning of the Resolutions of 1799 as we interpreted 
the meaning of those of 1798, by the speech of Breckin- 
ridge, it is the difference between nullification by a single 
State, and nullification by a majority of all the sovereign 
States: for the nearest that Breckinridge approaches to the 
doctrine of nullification, as asserted by Mr. Jefferson, was 
in the declaration that a majority of the States may de- 
clare null and void an act of Congress plainly unauthorized 
by the Constitution. 

That this was Kentucky's theory upon the subject was 
clearly proved when, a majority of the States having failed 
to approve her position, the Resolution of 1799 closed 
with the perfectly lawful declaration: "That altho' this 
commonwealth, as a party to the federal compact, will 
bow to the laws of the Union, yet it does at the same time 
declare, that it will not now, nor ever hereafter, cease to 
oppose in a constitutional manner every attempt from 
what quarter soever offered, to violate that compact." 
Against the laws which the co-States have refused to nul- 
lify, she simply enters her "Solemn Protest." 

To bow to the laws of the Union which the co-States 
refuse to nullify, and to content herself with opposing them 
in a constitutional manner, and to solemnly protest against 

Kentucky — 17 



258 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

them, is a very different conception from that upon which 
South Carolina acted in 1832. 

Having passed the House and Senate, and having re- 
ceived the approval of the Governor, the Resolutions of 
1799, were sent forth to the Legislatures of the co-States. 
The text here given is taken from one of eight hundred 
copies printed for distribution by order of the Kentucky 
Legislature, immediately after their adoption.^ 

KENTUCKY LEGISLATURE 



In the House of Representatives, November 14, 

1799 



The house, according to the standing order of the day, 
resolved itself into a committee of the whole house on the 
state of the commonwealth, Mr. Desha in the chair, and 
after some time spent therein the speaker resumed the chair, 
and Mr. Desha reported tJiat the committee had taken under 
consideration sundry resolutions passed by several state legis- 
latures on the subject of the alien and sedition laws, and had 
come to a resolution thereupon, which he delivered in at the 
clerk's table, where it was read and unanimously agreed to 
by the house, as folloius: 

The representatives of the good people of this com- 
monwealth in general assembly convened, having maturely 
considered the answers of sundry states in the Union, to 
their resolutions passed at the last session, respecting cer- 
tain unconstitutional laws of Congress, commonl)- called 
the alien and sedition laws, would be faithless indeed to 
themselves, and to those they represent, were they silently 
to acquiesce in the principles and doctrines attempted to 

* Original, Durrett collection. 



.ENTUCKY LEGISLATURE. 



In the Jloufe of licprelcnlatives, 

NOVEMBER loM, 1798- 

lilt HOUSK wroidin; lo tbc fticJnn OiJtr of Jlie 
Oij, nSdiil itfclf l«(o > Coromittet of the Whole 
«n the fttfc ui clie Cu«&nyuM«AKfi» 
:. . Mr. CALmVELLiiMhe Chair. 
" ' ' fjinrtimf f|imt jhcrtin iht Sfmlui relumed 
, mJ Mr. Caldwell rcjKSIeJ, th^tlhc Com- 
l:ja iccurdlof to frilcr had nrvJer conl?deratiori 
•uc Ca«cmut*l Addrefi, and hai eanx to the fulliw. 
iag Riiot-VTjoNs thercui>on. which he delivered in 
•t the Clerk'f table, whne the/ wnr twice read and 
agreed to by the Houfc. 

Jtv compofing tlic United Stntesof 
America, are not united on the jirinrlple 
of anlimited (\ibmifiioii Co their General 
GoTcrnment ; but that bjr coinpafl under 
tlie ftyle and title ol" a Conditulion f»r 
the United States and oT ainendnunts 
thereto, they conftitnted a CenernI Go- 
Tcrnment for fpecial piirpofes, diiltRated 
to that Government crriain definite pow- 
cr>, referving each (late to Itfelf, the r»- 
fiUuary mafa of right to their own felf 
Government J and that whenfocver the 
Ceoerat Government afTiunei ondelcKated 
powers, itsa^s are unauthoritative, void, 
• ntJ of no foree : That to tVis compnft 
each ftate at:ct\tA ai a (late, nnd U an 
integral party, Iti co-Rates forniing »•; to 
ilfelf, tlie other party 1 That the Govern- 
ment created by \\\\t compaft w.u nut 
made the exelnfivc or final judt',e of the 
«itent of the powers delegated to itfelf ; 
fiuce that would havemjde its difcretior, 
and not the conftitntioii, 'the meafure of 
Ui pow'era ; bnt thai »» in nil other cares 
of compafh among parties having no com- 
mon Jodge, each party has an equal rigiit 
to judge for Itfelf, as well of iiifmlioni 
•s of the mode and meafure of redrels. 

II. Refolved, that the ConftltiKlon of 
ifl« United States h.u'';nc delegated to 

Cni-^reH a power to piinifli trc^fcn, coun- 



terfeiting the feciiritlej and current coin 
of the United Stntej, piraciei and felonies 
com:nitted en the HiRh Seal, and offen-, 
cei againd the laws of nationi, and no o- 
ther crimes whatever, and it being true 
'as a general principle, and one of the 
amendments In the Cnnnitiitlon having 
alfo declareil, " that the pnwerj n.>t de- 
legated to the I'nlied States by the Clon- 
ftitu'ion,'hor prohibited by it to the (1ate<. 
arereferved to the dates refpeflively, or 
to the people," ther<ifore alfo the fame 
aft of Congref^ palfed on the 14'b day nt" 
Jnly, 1798, and entitled " An aft In ad- 
dition to the td. entitled an aft for the 
puniOiroent of certain crimes againd the 
United States;" ai alfo the aft palTed by 
them on the 27<h day of June, 1798. enti- 
tled " An aft to punifti frauiUtcommitteil 
en the Bank of the United Slates" (and 
all other their afts which alTiune to cre- 
ate, define, or punifh crimes other than, 
thofe enumcr.Ttid in the cnnditution) are 
altoRether void and of no force, and that 
iha powor to create, define, and piinifli 
fuch other criine« is referved, and vf rishc 
oppertains folely and excliifively to the 
refpeftive ft«t«s, each within Its own 
Territory. 

lil. Refolved, that It htrue as a gene- 
ral principle, and is alfo exprefsly declar- 
ed by one of the amendments to the Cun- 
ftitinion that "the powers not dele;;atcJ 
to the United States by the Conftitutloo, 
nor prohibited by it to tlit dates, ate re- 
ferved to the dates refpeftlvely or to the 
people;" and that no power over the 
freedom of religion, freedom of fpeech, 
or freedom of the prefs being delegated 
to the United States Ey the Conrtitniion, 
nor prohibited by it to the dates, all law 
fnl powers refpeftlng the fjme did of 
right remain, and weic referved to the 
Itates, or to the people: That thus was 
manifeded their determination to retain 
to thenifelves the right of judging how 
far the lief ntio\ifner« "f fpeech and of t^e 
pref; mav be abridged without Iclftnin;; 
their ufeful freedom, and how far ihof« 
abnfes wliicL cannot be f.parated fro^-n 



Reduced fac-simile of the original text of the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, as 
printed and distributed by order of the Legislature 




^ i^ ^ "^ 



Fold-out 
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This fold-out is being digitized, and will be inserted at 

future date. 



THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS 



259 



be maintained in all those answers, that of Virginia only 
excepted. To again enter the field of argument, and at- 
tempt more fully or forcibly to expose the unconstitution- 
ality of those obnoxious laws would, it is apprehended, be 
as unnecessary as unavailing. We cannot however but 
lament, that in the discussion of those interesting subjects, 
by sundry legislatures of our sister states, unfounded sug- 
gestions, and uncandid insinuations, derogatory of the true 
character and principles of the good people of this com- 
monwealth, have been substituted in place of fair reasoning 
and sound argument. Our opinions on those alarming 
measures of the general government, together with our 
reasons for those opinions, were detailed with decency & 
with temper, and submitted to the discussion and judgment 
of our fellow citizens throughout the Union. Whether the 
like decency and temper have been observed in the answers 
of most of those States who have denied or attempted to 
obviate the great truths contained in those resolutions, we 
have now only to submit to a candid world. Faithful to 
the true principles of the federal union, unconscious of any 
designs to disturb the harmony of that union, and anxious 
only to escape the fangs of depotism, the good people of 
this commonwealth are regardless of censure or calumnia- 
tion. Lest however the silence of this commonwealth 
should be construed into an acquiescence in the doctrines 
and principles advanced and attempted to be maintained 
by the said answers, or lest those of our fellow citizens 
throughout the Union, who so widely differ from us on 
these important subjects, should be deluded by the ex- 
pectation that we shall be deterred from what we conceive 
our duty; or shrink from the principles contained in those 
resolutions; therefore 



26o KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

Resolved, That this commonwealth considers the fed- 
eral union, upon the terms and for the purposes specified 
in the late compact, as conducive to the liberty and happi- 
ness of the several States : That it does now unequivocally 
declare its attachment to the Union, and to that compact, 
agreeable to its obvious and real intention, and will be 
among the last to seek its dissolution : That if those who 
administer the general government be permitted to trans- 
gress the limits fixed by that compact, by a total disregard 
to the special delegations of power therein contained, an 
annihilation of the state governments and the erection upon 
their ruins, of a general consolidated government, will be 
the inevitable consequence: That the principle and con- 
struction contended for by sundry of the State legislatures, 
that the general government is the exclusive judge of the 
extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing short of 
despotism; since the discretion of those who administer the 
government, and not the constitution, would be the measure 
of their powers : That the several states who formed that 
instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the 
unquestionable right to judge of its infraction; and that a 
nullification, by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized 
acts done under colour of that instrument, is the rightful 
remedy: That this commonwealth does upon the most 
deliberate reconsideration declare, that the said alien and 
sedition laws, are in their opinion, palpable violations of 
the said constitution; and however chearfully it may be 
disposed to surrender its opinion to a majority of its sister 
states in matters of ordinary or doubtful policy; yet, in 
momentous regulations like the present, v/hich so vitally 
wound the best rights of the citizen, it would consider a si- 
lent acquiescence as highly criminal: That altho' this com- 



THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS 261 

monwealth as a party to the federal compact, will bow 
to the laws of the Union, yet it does at the same time de- 
clare, that it will not now, nor ever hereafter, cease to 
oppose in a constitutional manner every attempt from 
what quarter soever offered, to violate that compact: And 
FINALLY, in order that no pretexts or arguments may be 
drawn from a supposed acquiescence on the part of this 
commonwealth in the constitutionality of those laws, and 
be thereby used as precedents for similar future violations 
of the federal compact; this commonwealth does now enter 
against them, its solemn protest. 

There can be no doubt that the doctrine of nullification, 
by a majority of the co-States, represented the deliberate 
judgment of the Kentuckians of that generation, but it 
is not evident that they believed in the right of one State 
to nullify a Federal law. It is at least clear what their 
position upon that doctrine was thirty years later, when, 
having watched the gradual unfolding and the definite 
assertion of the South Carolina doctrine, they definitely 
repudiated it. In a resolution, drawn by Thomas F. 
Marshall, adopted by the Kentucky Legislature, and signed 
by Governor Breathitt (February 2, 1833), appear these 
words, which the Governor himself requested Mann Butler 
to incorporate in his " History of Kentucky ": " Resolved, 
that so long as the present Constitution remains unaltered, 
the legislative enactments of the constituted authorities 
of the United States can only be repealed by the authori- 
ties that made them; and if not repealed, can in no wise 
be finally and authoritatively abrogated or annulled, than 
by the sentence of the Federal Judiciary, declaring their 
unconstitutionality; that those enactments, subject only 



262 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

to be so repealed or declared null, and treaties made by 
the United States, are supreme laws of the land; that no 
State of the Union has any constitutional right to nullify 
any such enactment or treaty, or to contravene them, or 
obstruct their execution; that it is the duty of the President 
of the United States, a bounden, solemn duty, to take care 
that these enactments and treaties be faithfully executed, 
observed and fulfilled. . . ." ^ 

So far, however, as Jefferson's immediate purpose was 
concerned, he was justified in viewing the matter with 
complacency. He was playing the game of politics, and 
the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions had done their 
work most effectively. They had forced the Federalists 
to attempt a public defence of a set of laws which the great 
American public bitterly resented, and this without im- 
plicating him; as only his intimate friends, bound by a 
solemn pledge of secrecy, knew that Jefferson was their 
original author. They had, therefore, dealt the first stag- 
gering blow to the Federalist supremacy: but it was left 
for the Federalist leaders themselves to deal the deathblow. 
Federalism might have weathered the storm raised by the 
Alien and Sedition laws, as explained by. the Kentucky 
and Virginia Resolutions, had not a sudden change in the 
nation's foreign affairs caused John Adams to take the 
step which brought hopeless division into the Federalist 
ranks. 

Lord Nelson had struck his first overwhelming blow in 
Abukir Bay, and Napoleon's fleet had been hopelessly 
shattered (August i, 1798). The French Directory, which 
had had no real desire to engage the United States in 
war, seeing the black cloud of a coalition of European 

1 Butler, 1834 Ed., pp. 289-290. 



THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS 263 

powers loom up before it, was anxious for an excuse to ap- 
pease America. Talleyrand, therefore, informed President 
Adams, through William Vans Murray, our Minister to 
the Netherlands, that if the United States would send an- 
other Minister to Paris he would be received, "as the rep- 
resentative of a great, free, powerful and independent 
nation." It was a crisis such as few men have had to face, 
but John Adams, however lacking in political wisdom, did 
not lack courage. Having convinced himself that Talley- 
rand, for once, was speaking the truth, he decided that the 
interest of the country demanded peace, and determined 
to have it. Without waiting to consult Washington, the 
leaders of his party, or even the members of his Cabinet, 
he sent to Congress the name of William Vans Murray 
as Minister to France. In making this nomination, Mr. 
Adams informed the Senate of his intention to, " instruct 
Mr. Murray not to go to France before he received direct 
and unequivocal assurance from the French Government, 
through its Minister of External Relations, that he would 
be received in character, have its privileges extended to 
him, and be met by another minister of equal rank, title 
and power, to treat of, discuss, and conclude, all con- 
troversies between the two republics." ^ 

When this extraordinary nomination was reported in the 
papers, next day (February 19, 1799), people refused to 
credit the news, as they had heard nothing of Talleyrand's 
proposal, the Senate having sat with closed doors. The 
Federalist leaders, finding such important matters going 
forward without any previous party consultation, looked 
upon the nomination with decided disfavor, while the Seri- 
ate, astonished at the sudden change in Adams' position, 

1 Document quoted, Marshall, II, p. 293. 



264 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

sent a committee to induce him to withdraw the nomina- 
tion. Adams, however, stood firm, until the committee 
threatened to report against it, when he withdrew the 
name of Vans Murray, and substituted a commission, 
composed of Chief Justice Ellsworth, Patrick Henry and 
William Vans Murray. This second nomination was re- 
luctantly confirmed. Henry, however, refused to serve, 
and William Davie, of North CaroHna, was put into 
his place. The commission thus constituted, immediately 
sailed for Paris, where they were well received, and, in the 
course of a few months, concluded a treaty ^ which, while 
not entirely satisfactory, served to avert the war which 
everyone had thought inevitable. 

Jefferson and the Republicans were jubilant. They 
saw that the days of Federalist supremacy were numbered. 
The Kentucky Resolutions had brought the weakness 
of the Administration clearly before the public, and 
Adams' heroism had hopelessly divided the Federalist 
party. In the presidential election of the following year 
(1800), this division was painfully apparent. Out of a 
total of one hundred and thirty-eight electoral votes, 
Adams received only sixty-five, while Jefferson and Burr, 
the candidates of the Democratic party, received seventy- 
three each. The election, therefore, went to the House 
of Representatives, which chose Jefferson, upon the thirty- 
sixth ballot, and Burr was relegated to the position of 
Vice-President. 

1 Text of treaty, "Kentucky Gazette," January 26, 1801. 



CHAPTER IX 

KENTUCKY AND THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 

During the period intervening between the proclama- 
tion of Pinckney's treaty of 1795 and the election of 1800, 
which made Thomas Jefferson President, the right to 
navigate the Mississippi and to deposit goods at New 
Orleans had produced marked results. Trade between 
Kentucky and the southern ports had grown with aston- 
ishing rapidity/ and Governor Garrard, in his Message 
of November 4, 1800, dwelt upon that fact with great 
satisfaction. Trade by way of the Mississippi, according 
to his economic system, would readily lend itself to " an 
exchange of commodities," thus preventing the export of 
specie and protecting the circulating medium of the State. 
It was therefore more desirable than trade with the East, 
which could offer no such advantage. For this reason he 
urged the advisability of "giving premiums on importa- 
tions by way of the Mississippi," in order to call the atten- 
tion of Kentucky merchants "to that essential channel of 
our foreign commerce." ^ 

But while the Governor was laboring to encourage 
southern trade, foreign politics were rapidly and secretly 
creating conditions looking to its complete destruction. 
The sagacious French Minister, Talleyrand, had never 

1 Madison to Charles Pinckney, November 27, 1802 (Madison's Works), 
for figures indicating the value of this Kentucky trade. 

2 Butler, pp. 295-296. 

265 



266 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S fflSTORY 

lost sight of his design to regain Florida and Louisiana 
for France,^ but his plans were not brought to maturity 
until the vision of an American Empire dawned upon the 
mind of Napoleon, First Consul in name, but Emperor in 
fact, of France. Then Talleyrand sent instructions to the 
French Minister at Madrid bidding him make arrange- 
ments with Spain for the transfer of those two provinces to 
France, which was the first step in Napoleon's design to 
restore to France the imperial domain, which had been 
lost when Wolfe scaled the rocky heights of Quebec, to die 
on the plains of Abraham. In the year 1800 suggestions 
coming from the First Consul of France had much the 
force of law with most of the European States, and the 
secret treaty of San Ildefonso^ was speedily concluded, 
Spain agreeing to deliver Louisiana to its original possessor, 
the French nation. 

Napoleon, however, was not as prompt in taking pos- 
session of his new domain as he usually was in fol- 
lowing out his plans, and it was November, 1801, before 
Leclerc, with a French army, weighed anchor for the 
Louisiana Territory. Fortunately for America this ex- 
pedition never reached its destination, for Leclerc 's orders 
were to stop at San Domingo, and destroy the little negro 
Republic which Toussaint Louverture had erected in that 
island. ^ This, the First Consul considered a mere inci- 
dent: but it proved otherwise: seventeen thousand French 
soldiers were lost in the attempt, and a second army 
perished by yellow fever, while endeavoring to keep the 
negroes in subjection; and still no French troops had been 

1 McMaster, II, p. 625. 

2 October i, 1800. 

3 McMaster, III, p. 217. 



THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 267 

landed in Louisiana. In the meantime, Morales, Spanish 
Intendant at New Orleans, supposing that these troops 
would soon arrive, had issued the following proclamation, 
which struck a staggering blow at the commerce of Ken- 
tucky and the West: 

"As long as it was necessary to tolerate the trade of 
neutrals, which is now abolished, it would have been 
prejudicial to this country, that the Intendant complying 
with his duty should have prevented the deposit in this 
city of the property of Americans as granted to them by 
the twenty-second article of the Treaty of Friendship, 
Limits and Navigation of the 27th of October 1795, at 
the expiration of the three years prefixed; but now that, 
with the publication of the treaty of Amiens, and the re- 
establishment of the communication between the English 
and Spanish subjects, that inconvenience has ceased, 
considering that the 22d article of the said treaty prevents 
my continuing this toleration, which necessity required 
after the fulfillment of the stipulated time, this ministry 
can no longer consent to it, without an express order of 
the King's. Therefore without prejudice to the exporta- 
tion of what has been admitted in proper time, I order 
that from this date shall cease the privilege which the 
Americans had of bringing and depositing their goods 
in this capitol. And that the foregoing may be publicly 
known, and that nobody may plead ignorance, I order 
it to be published in the accustomed places, copies to be 
posted up in public; and that the necessary notice be given 
of it to the Department of Finance, Royal Custom-House, 
and others that may be thought proper. 

" Done at the Intendancy, signed with my hand, and 



268 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

countersigned by the Notary Public of Finance, at New 
Orleans, i6th October, 1802. 

(Signed) "Juan Ventura Morales. 
" By order of the Intendant: 
"Peter Pedesclaux." ^ 

This startling news was conveyed to Governor Garrard 
by a letter from James Speed: ^ 

"By express, I enclose you the proclamation of our 
Intendant General, which did not issue till this morn- 
ing. ... It can require no comment from me. If it 
does not amount to a declaration of war, with the worst 
consequences to individuals, none of us here under- 
stand it. The people of the Mississippi Territory will 
immediately feel its effects, and when to their indigna- 
tion is joined that of our countrymen in the Spring, God 
knows how it may be possible to prevent hostilities. We 
all hope however, that you will immediately concert with 
Mr. Jefferson to prevent the horrible consequences which 
we apprehend, and be assured that any measures you may 
adopt to prevent unnecessary bloodshed, and at the same 
time preserve the dignity of our country, will be warmly 
supported by a majority of our countrymen here, and 
particularly by 

" Your humble servant — 

"Farewell—" 

Garrard laid this important information before the Leg- 

1 Printed in full in the "Kentucky Gazette" of November 30, 1S02. 

3 Dated New Orleans, October i8, 1S02. This and a similar letter appear 
in the "Kentucky Gazette" of December 7, 1S02, either their delivery to the 
Governor, or his delivery of them to the printer having been delayed. 



THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 269 

islature, which at once passed the following resolutions and 
memorial: ^ 

"Resolved, That the proclamation of the Intendant of 
the port of New Orleans, of the i8th of October last, is 
a direct infraction of the treaty of friendship, limits and 
navigation, concluded in October 1795, between the United 
States and the King of Spain, in this particular .... 
that by the said proclamation, American citizens arc 
forbidden to deposit their merchandizes and effects in 
the port of New Orleans, without an equivalent establish- 
ment having been assigned to the United States, on an- 
other part of the banks of the Mississippi, conformably 
to the provision of the twenty-second article of the said 
treaty. 

" Resolved — that the Governor be requested to forward 
the following memorial to our senators and represen- 
tatives in Congress, to be by them presented to the Presi- 
dent of the United States, the Senate and House of Rep- 
resentatives in Congress. 

** Having on a former occasion, when we represented 
the obstructions to the navigation of the river Mississippi, 
experienced the attention and justice of the General Gov- 
ernment, in providing by a treaty with the Court of Spain, 
not only for the free navigation of that river, but for what, 
in our remote situation from the ocean was absolutely 
necessary to the enjoyment of it, a place of deposit for 
our produce, — we deem it necessary barely to state to 
you, that by an infraction of that treaty, we are deprived 
of those advantages, in violation of the treaty between the 
United States and the King of Spain, concluded at San 

* "Kentucky Gazette," December 7, 1802. They were passed December i, 
i8oa. 



2/0 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

Lorenzo el Real, in October 1795. The Intendant of the 
port of New Orleans has by a proclamation of the i8th 
of October last, forbidden American citizens to deposit 
their merchandizes and effects in the said port, with- 
out having assigned to the United States an equivalent 
establishment on another part of the banks of the Mis- 
sissippi. 

"We rely with confidence on your wisdom and justice, 
and pledge ourselves to support at the expense of our 
lives and fortunes, such measures as the honor, and inter- 
ests of the United States may require." 

This memorial did not reach the President in time to be 
mentioned in his Second Annual Message, which was sent 
to Congress on December I5th.^ In this message, there- 
fore, he makes no reference to the closing of the Mis- 
sissippi, and dismisses the whole Louisiana question with 
the casual statement: "The cession of the Spanish prov- 
ince of Louisiana to France, which took place in the 
course of the late war, will, if carried into effect, make 
a change in the aspect of our foreign relations which will 
doubtless have just weight in any deliberations of the 
Legislature connected with that subject. " 

The Federalist leaders in Congress, eager for a stroke 
of policy, now began to pose as the particular friends of 
the West, trying, Jefferson declared, to force the country 
into a war with Spain, "in order to damage our finances," 
and to "attach the Western country to them." ^ Ken- 
tucky readily fell in with the idea of war, and even went so 
far as to organize volunteer militia for the expected invasion 

1 Published in "Kentucky Gazette," January 4, 1803; cf. also "Jefferson's 
Works," VIII, p. 16. 

2 George Tucker's "Life of Thomas Jefferson," II, p. 126, 



THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 27 1 

of New Orleans;^ but Jefferson was far too clear-sighted 
to adopt a war policy, until peaceful resources had been 
fully tried. He sent (December 22, 1802) to Congress 
the copy of the Intendant's Proclamation, together with 
a letter from Governor Garrard,^ and similar communica- 
tions which had reached him, and turned his attention 
to adjusting the difficult question without war. 

On January 18, 1803, he addressed to the Governor 
a letter which convinced the people of Kentucky that their 
case was in efficient and willing hands. "Soon after the 
date of my letter to you of December i6th, the Memo- 
rial of the Senate and House of Representatives of Ken- 
tucky . . . came to hand. In that letter I informed you 
that we had reason to believe that the suspension of the 
right of deposit at New Orleans, was an act merely of the 
Intendant, unauthorized by his Government. . . . Further 
information showing that this act of the Intendant was 
unauthorized, has strengthened our expectation that it will 
be corrected. 

"In order however, to provide against the hazards 
■which beset out interests and peace in that quarter, I 
have determined, with the approbation of the Senate, to 
send James Monroe . . . with full powers to him and 
our ministers in France and Spain, to enter with those 
governments into such arrangements as may effectually 
secure our rights and interests in the Mississippi. . . , 
He is now here and will depart immediately." ^ 

1 "Kentucky Gazette," March 29, 1803; article headed "Kentucky in 
Arms." 

2 Ibid., January 11, 1803. 

'Ibid., February 14, 1803. "The object of Monroe's instructions will be 
to procure a cession of New Orleans and the Floridas to the United States and 
consequently the establishment of the Mississippi as the boundary between 



272 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

This letter, with one from John Breckinridge pub- 
lished at the same time, and urging patience and confidence 
in the central government, quieted the minds of the people. 
And so Kentucky waited, however impatiently, for the re- 
sult of the President's peaceful measures, determined, as 
was the central government, that if they failed, our rights 
upon the Mississippi should be maintained by force 
of arms. 

"If the result of Mr, Monroe's mission," said an anony- 
mous writer in the " Kentucky Gazette," ^ "should prove 
inauspicious, but one opinion will pervade all America. 
We shall then possess but one mind and one arm. The 
patriotism of the country will banish all party distinctions, 
and the breast of every citizen will burn with indignant 
pride. . . . Let us await with patience his return — with 
that silent expectation, which, prepared to meet with joy 
the news of a happy issue, is nevertheless, if disappointed, 
ready to inflict a blow which will let all Europe know, 
that though difficult to be aroused, America acts with vigor 
and effect." 

It soon became evident that Jefferson and his friends 
had been wise in proceeding toward a peaceful settlement 
of the matter. Dispatches arrived from Livingston at 
Paris, which convinced the people that the French Govern- 
ment had no desire to do anything derogatory to our in- 
terests. " They have received the cession of Louisiana from 
Spain," declared these dispatches, " but under all the re- 
strictions and limitations imposed on Spain, from treaties 
existing between us and that nation." ^ And some three 

the United States and Louisiana." Madison to Pinckney, January i8, 1803. 
Fuller's "Purchase of Florida," p. 106. 

1 March 8, 1803. 

2 "Kentucky Gazette," March 8, 1803. 



THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 273 

weeks later a letter from the Marquis de Cusa Yrujo, to 
the Secretary of State, declared that the " proclamation of 
the Intendant is an act purely personal, without the 
sanction and even without the knowledge of his Catholic 
Majesty. ... I shall now take it upon myself," he adds, 
"to adopt measures which must ensure to the United States 
the enjoyment of all the rights stipulated in the 22d article 
of the treaty, on the arrival at New Orleans of the dis- 
patches which will be forwarded under this date." ^ 

This official news deprived the war party of all ground 
for their clamor, and the Ministers at Paris were left free 
to carry on their negotiations in a friendly atmosphere, 
which task was lightened by the approach of renewed war 
between England and France, causing Napoleon to con- 
sider favorably any proposition likely to replenish his 
depleted treasury. Thus when Livingston appeared before 
the French Minister, ^ and proposed to purchase the Island 
of New Orleans, he was met by an offer to sell us the 
whole of Louisiana. After considerable shrewd bargaining, 
it was found that Napoleon would accept fifteen million 
dollars for this vast dominion, and, as our Ministers had 
been instructed to offer ten million for a comparatively 
small portion of it,^ they wisely decided to exceed their in- 

1 "Kentucky Gazette," March 29, 1803, gives full text of this letter. 

2 Full text of Mr. Livingston's Memorial to the French Government is given 
in the " Kentucky Gazette" of August 2, 1803. The editor apologizes for omit- 
ting several articles of importance. They are omitted, he says, because "the 
interesting concerns of our own country claim our first attention." 

3 They were authorized to offer, as the highest price for "the Island of New 
Orleans and both the Floridas," fifty million livres tournois, or about $9,250,000. 
Should France be willing to sell only portions of these territories the Commis- 
sioners were instructed to estimate the Floridas together at "one-fourth the 
value of the whole island of New Orleans, and East Florida, at one-half that of 
West Florida." Madison to Livingston and Monroe, March 2, 1803. Quoted, 
Fuller's "Purchase of Florida," p. iii. 

Kentucky — 18 



274 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

structions. The bargain was concluded; and the purchase 
completed in the treaty of 1803.^ 

The news was announced by the " Kentucky Gazette " ^ 
in a dispatch, dated Paris, May 13 — "Louisiana is ceded 
to the United States on the most honorable terms and 
indemnification will be made for French spoliations." So 
sudden and unexpected was this turn of affairs that men 
could hardly credit it, and the editor of the " Gazette " 
showed his own hesitation, by the significant introduction, 
"Highly important if true." Numerous other communi- 
cations, however, published in the same issue, confirmed 
the report, the official dispatch from Washington declar- 
ing, "The executive have received official information that 
a treaty was signed on the 30th of April, between the 
Ministers Plenipotentiary of the United States, and the 
Minister Plenipotentiary of the French Government, by 
which the United States have obtained the full right to, 
and sovereignty over New Orleans, and the whole of Lou- 
isiana, as Spain possessed the same." 

When, from successive dispatches, men came to realize 
that at last Kentucky was forever secure in her cherished 
rights of free navigation and deposit, enthusiasm went wild. 
Celebrations were held in various districts and towns 
of the State; toasts were drunk to Congress, to the Presi- 
dent, to the ministers who negotiated the treaty, even to 
" General Wilkinson — Let us not forget the man who first 
adventured as an exporter of produce to New Orleans." ^ 
The Federalists alone, "the friends of war," were passed 



i Text of Treaty, Snow's "American Diplomacy," p. 46. 

2 Issue of July 19, 1803. 

3 See account of Lexington meeting in "Kentucky Gazette" of August 16, 
1803. 



THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 275 

over in contempt, the excited Kentuckians, in their excess 
of joy, forgetting even to mention the men who had posed 
as friends of the West, while resisting the course which 
had brought them their hearts' desire. 

On October 17, 1803, President Jefferson sent to the 
Senate a message, asking concurrence in the treaty of 
purchase, against which course the Federahsts fought 
with desperation. They denounced the purchase as un- 
constitutional, extravagant, fooHsh, and a menace to the 
integrity of the Union. But they failed to realize the most 
serious danger lurking in this first great act of Imperialism, 
a danger soon to become pressing — that of developing sec- 
tional antagonism, upon the question of the extension of 
slavery into the new dominion. Their opposition, however, 
was of no avail. The Senate ratified the treaty and, on 
October 21, the President signed it and sent it to the 
House,^ which, to the chagrin of the Federalists, promptly 
adopted the measures necessary for putting it into opera- 
tion. 

The French Consul proceeded at once to New Orleans, 
where a prompt and courteous surrender by the Spanish 
officials took place. ^ The American citizens resident in 
New Orleans formed themselves into a corps of volun- 
teers and offered their services to Governor Laussat. 
They were received as auxiliaries to the city militia, and 
then all awaited the arrival of the American troops, and 
the scene of the final transfer. On Tuesday, December 20, 

1 The news was announced in Kentucky by a letter from John Breckinridge, 
dated Washington, October 21, 1803. "The Palladium," Frankfort, Novem- 
ber 12, 1803. 

2 Details of the ceremony, "Kentucky Gazette," January 24, 1804; "Palla- 
dium," January 28, 1804; also in Jefferson's Special Message of January 16, 
1804, and "Kentucky Gazette," February 7, 1804. 



276 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

1803, William C. Claiborne and General James Wilkin- 
son, the commissioners appointed to represent the United 
States, advanced to the gates of New Orleans, attended 
by a detachment of American troops, with bands play- 
ing the popular airs of France. Here they were met by 
the Spanish troops, and escorted to the Place d'Armes, 
where they presented their credentials to Laussat. These 
were read aloud to the crowd that filled the Cabildo, and 
then, the transfer of the province having been proclaimed, 
the keys of the city were handed to Claiborne, and the 
subjects of France were solemnly absolved by Laussat, 
from their allegiance to the First Consul. 

Thus came about, in peace and quiet, the result for the 
attaining of which the pages of Kentucky history had for 
years been darkened by secret foreign intrigues. The 
cession of Louisiana destroyed the incentive to conspiracy 
with foreign countries, so far as Kentucky was concerned; 
but General Wilkinson, whose dark destinies seemed to 
attach him forever to such paths, was soon deeply en- 
gaged in another project with reference to the Mississippi 
Valley, and this time in connection with the late Vice- 
President of the United States, Aaron Burr. 



CHAPTER X 



THE BURR CONSPIRACY 



Scarcely had the excitement caused by the closing of 
the Mississippi subsided, and the people of Kentucky 
settled down to the development of the enlarged com- 
mercial possibilities which the purchase of Louisiana 
opened to them, when another intrigue, darker and more 
mysterious than any which had hitherto developed, began 
to emerge. 

In May, 1805, Aaron Burr, late Vice-President of the 
United States, now an exile from his home, an outlaw 
from his party, and a fugitive from justice, appeared at 
Frankfort. The cause of his coming was unknown. 
Rumor had it, that he was interested in a company which 
was planning the construction of a canal on the Indiana 
side of the Ohio River, to enable vessels to pass the falls,^ 
while other reports declared that Jefferson had succeeded 
in removing him from national politics, by appointing him 
Governor of the new Territory of Louisiana. Everyone 
was, of course, familiar with the thrilling tragedy of his 
life; how, after years of bitter conflict with the genius of 
the Federalist party, Alexander Hamilton, he had seen his 
political prospects, one by one, destroyed, until finally 
he had completed the process by killing his enemy in a 
duel, which he had deliberately forced upon him. And 
although the people of Kentucky were sufficiently Dem- 

1 Marshall, p. 372. 
277 



2/8 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

ocratic not to take up the quarrels of the late Federalist 
leader, they knew that Burr had long been regarded 
with suspicion and distrust by their idol, Jefferson; which 
fact alone was sufficient to cause many of them to look 
askance at the newcomer, and to credit any rumors which 
might be circulated against him. 

In spite of the verdict which the coroner's jury had 
rendered after the duel, "That Aaron Burr Esq., Vice- 
President of the United States is guilty of the murder of 
Alexander Hamilton;" ^ and in spite of the fact that war- 
rants for his arrest had been issued, both in New York 
and New Jersey, Burr had performed the last honorable 
public function of his life, by presiding in the Senate at 
the trial of Justice Chase, "with the dignity and impar- 
tiality of an angel; but with the rigor of a devil," as a con- 
temporary newspaper declared. At the close of his term 
of office, he had delivered his farewell to the Senate, in a 
speech so eloquent and so pathetic, that, as Mr. Parton 
records, it had left the whole Senate in tears, "and so 
unmanned it, that it was half an hour before they could 
recover themselves sufficiently to come to order, and choose 
a Vice-President pro tem." ^ 

In the meantime his residence at Richmond Hill had 
been sold for debt, besides which he owed some eight 
thousand dollars, for which his person was liable in case 
he should be apprehended. In view of which discouraging 
complications, he had remarked to his son-in-law. Colonel 
Joseph Alston, " In New York I am to be disfranchised, 
in New Jersey hanged. Having substantial objections to 

1 "Palladium," Frankfort, August -2$, 1804; Hildreth, "Second Series," II, 
p. 528. 

zParton's "Burr," p. 376. 



THE BURR CONSPIRACY 279 

both I shall not . . . hazard either, but shall seek another 
country." 

His appearance in Kentucky, at this time, marks the 
beginning of that search, which was to brand him as a 
traitor to his country: a title which history has long con- 
fessed herself unable completely to confirm or to deny. 
As he drove through the unpaved streets of the Capital 
toward the house of John Brown, one of Kentucky's 
United States Senators, men began to speculate as to the 
probable cause of his visit, and from that day to the present, 
each generation has added its own solution to this still un- 
solved riddle. It was charged then, as it is charged now, 
that he had spent the last days of his Vice-Presidency in 
forming treasonable connections with the English minister, 
Anthony Merry, and had proposed to lend his services to 
Great Britain, to separate the western country from the 
union of States; ^ but the evidence was then, and still is, 
vague and difficult to handle. Moreover, in the minds of 
many Kentuckians of that day it was a sinister fact that 
Burr was on intimate terms with General James Wilkin- 
son, Commander-in-Chief of the United States army, and 
Governor of the new Territory of Louisiana,^ whose tend- 
ency to Spanish intrigue had for years been a current 
topic of discussion in Kentucky political circles. What 
they did not know was that Burr had come to Frankfort, 
fresh from a long conversation with Wilkinson. 

1 McMaster, III, p. 55. 

2 Hildreth's "Second Series," II, p. 595. The newly purchased province of 
Louisiana had been divided into two territories. The portion lying south of the 
thirty-third parallel was now called Orleans and was governed by Claiborne; 
while the part to the north of that line, called Louisiana, with its only consid- 
erable population at and near St. Louis, was pjesided over by Wilkinson. Act 
of March 3, 1805. 



28o KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

At Pittsburg, while waiting for his flatboat to be made 
ready for his journey down the Ohio, he had met the 
General just preparing to start for St. Louis to take up 
his duties as Governor of Louisiana. After some conver- 
sation, Wilkinson had invited Burr to join him, in order 
that the common part of their journeys might be made in 
company.^ The invitation, however, had been refused, as 
Burr's comfortable conveyance, a house boat with four 
rooms well furnished and lighted by glass windows, was 
ready first. 

He had, therefore, started on his journey alone; but be- 
fore long had overtaken Mathew Lyon, who had won re- 
nown as a victim of Federalist persecution under the late 
Sedition law. Together they had floated down the Ohio, 
while Lyon called Burr's attention to the fact that the new 
State of Tennessee did not require residence, as a condition, 
for a candidate to represent her in Congress. Here, then, 
was an opening, for although disqualified for politics in the 
East, Burr knew that in Tennessee it would be a small 
disadvantage to him that he had killed the Federalist 
champion in a duel. He had, therefore, resolved to visit 
that State and investigate for himself; and his visit to 
John Brown at Frankfort was, in part at least, for the 
purpose of securing letters to certain of that gentleman's 
friends in the neighborhood of Nashville.^ 

After a week at Nashville, where hospitality was lavished 
upon him by Andrew Jackson and other leading citizens 
of the State, Burr descended the Cumberland and, near 



1 McCaleb's "The Aaron Burr Conspiracy," p. 25; Hildreth's "Second 
Series," II, p. 596. 

2 Wilkinson's testimony, "Trial of Aaron Burr," III, p. 361. Quoted, Mc- 
Master, III, p. 57. 



THE BURR CONSPIRACY 281 

Fort Massac/ on the north bank of the Ohio, spent four 
days with General Wilkinson, who met him there, probably 
by appointment. It was upon this occasion that plans 
were perfected for Burr's descent to New Orleans, an idea 
which Wilkinson himself seems to have suggested, being 
conscious, as few men in the country were conscious, of the 
abhorrence with which the Spanish and French speaking 
colonists of the Southwest viewed their recent incorpora- 
tion into a nation which they had been trained to hate. 
Wilkinson's interest in this journey is clearly shown by the 
fact that he furnished Burr with "an elegant barge, sails, 
colors, and ten oars, with a sergeant and ten able hands to 
prosecute his journey; " ^ together with letters of introduc- 
tion to leading men in the neighborhood of New Orleans; 
while, in Wilkinson's glowing description of the discontent 
in the Southwest, Burr's ambitious mind undoubtedly saw a 
larger field for his political talents than was offered by the 
position of Representative or even Senator from Tennessee. 
Having thus dispatched Burr upon his mission of in- 
vestigation, Wilkinson returned to his duties at St. Louis 
to dream of diadems, and sound the loyalty of his men; 
for he could not doubt that Burr would soon be deep in 
revolutionary projects in New Orleans. And so it proved. 
Burr found the Orleans country full of plans of revolution. 
There were schemes for driving the Spaniards out of Texas, 
and three hundred men had bound themselves by an oath to 
free Mexico from Spanish rule. To turn them all against 
the detested government of Governor Claiborne appeared 
an easy task. The inhabitants were enraged at the intro- 
duction of English forms of law, and the natural leaders 

1 Safford's "Blennerhassett Papers," p. 107. 

2 Ibid. 



282 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

of the district sulked at the sHght participation which the 
American Government allowed the native-born inhabitants.^ 

A new vision of glory arose in Burr's mind as he studied 
this situation, and before it all lesser projects vanished like 
the mists. To restore the throne of Montezuma, to add to 
it the great Mississippi Valley, and to rule as the monarch 
of this vast empire : these were the possibilities which the 
condition of the Southwest presented to his mind, as he 
began his journey northward. 

Behind him floated vague rumors, an account of which 
Daniel Clark dispatched to General Wilkinson, in the 
following letter : — 

"Many absurd reports are circulated here . . . respect- 
ing our Ex- Vice-President. You are spoken of as his right 
hand man. . . . Power, whose head is always stuffed 
with plots, projects, conspiracies etc. and who sees objects 
through a millstone, is going to Natchez next week, to 
unravel the whole of this extraordinary business; and then 
God have mercy on the culprits, for Spanish ire and in- 
dignation will be leveled at them. What in the name of 
Heaven, could give rise to these extravagancies ? . . . 
The tale is a horrid one, if well told. Kentucky, Ten- 
nessee, the State of Ohio, the four territories on the Mis- 
sissippi and Ohio, with part of Georgia and Carolina, are 
to be bribed with the plunder of the Spanish countries 
West of us, to separate from the Union; this is but a part 
of the business. Heavens, what wonderful doings there 
will be in those days! . . . Amuse Mr. Burr with an ac- 
count of it. . . ." ^ 

1 Hildreth's "Second Series," II, p. 598. 

2 Samuel Clark to General Wilkinson, New Orleans September 7, 1805. 
Wilkinson's "Memoirs," III, Appendix, p. 33. 



THE BURR CONSPIRACY 283 

On August 19, Burr reached Lexington and, after a 
visit of nine days, rode on to Frankfort, where he again 
enjoyed the hospitaHty of John Brown,^ though we have 
no reason to beheve that he took his host into his con- 
fidence. Here vague rumor was made somewhat more 
definite by a set of "Queries" pubHshed in the "Palla- 
dium." ^ 

"How long will it be before we shall hear of Colonel 
Burr being at the head of i revolution party on the Western 
Waters ? 

"Is it a fact that Col. Burr has formed a plan to engage 
the adventurous and enterprising young men from the 
Atlantic States to come to Louisiana ? 

"Is one of the inducements that an immediate conven- 
tion will be called, from the States bordering on the Ohio 
and Mississippi, to form a separate government ? " 

These and similar questions led the " Kentucky Gazette" 
to follow carefully the movements of this man, the latter 
part of whose political career " fraught with a degree of 
duplicity, which can never be satisfactorily defended, has 
made him an object of attention wherever he has traveled. 
His talents for intrigue are considered as unrivalled in 
America, and his disposition doubted but by few." 

But, in spite of suspicions. Burr won many enthusiastic 
admirers in Frankfort. By such he was looked upon as 
the victim of circumstances, his genius was lauded and 
his faults condoned. Perhaps no American statesman 
has ever possessed such marvelous power of attracting 
strangers, and certainly none has so fearlessly made capital 
of this power. The following letter, written in the bom- 

1 McCaleb, pp. 25, 34. 

2 September 7, 1807. Copied from the "Philadelphia Gazette." 



284 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

bastic style so common at that period, describes Burr as 
he appeared during this visit to Frankfort: 

"Frankfort, Aug. 30, 1805. 

"My dear Friend: 

"I have at length been gratified with the sight of the 
late Vice-President, Aaron Burr. He arrived in this place 
on the 28th inst. from Orleans. A few days after, I had 
the honor of spending an evening in his company. I 
know you will laugh at the idea of my awkwardness, but 
be that as it may, I took some good solid looks at him; 
and can tell you something about him. 

"His stature is about five feet six inches; he is a spare, 
meagre form, but of an elegant symmetry; his complexion 
is fair and transparent; his dress was fashionable and neat, 
but not flashy. He is a man of an erect and dignified 
deportment; his presence is of the French configuration; 
his forehead is prominent, broad, and retreating, indicative 
of great expansion of mind, immense range of thoughts, 
and amazing exuberance of fancy, but too smooth and 
regular for great altitude of conception. . , . The eye- 
brows are thin, nearly horizontal, and too far from the 
eye; his nose is nearly rectilinear, too slender between the 
eyes, rather inclined to the right side: gently elevated, 
which betrays a degree of haughtiness; too obtuse at the 
end for great acuteness of penetration, brilliancy of wit, 
or poignancy of satire; and too small to sustain his ample 
and capacious forehead. His eyes are of ordinary size, 
of a dark hazel; and from the shade of his projecting eye 
bones, and brows, appear black; they glow with all the 
ardor of venerial fire, and scintillate with the most tremu- 
lous and tearful sensibility. They roll with the celerity 



THE BURR CONSPIRACY 285 

and frenzy of poetic fervour and beam with the most vivid 
and piercing rays of genius. His mouth is large; his voice 
is manly, clear, and melodious; his lips are thin, extremely 
flexible, and, when silent, gently closed; but opening with 
facility to distill the honey which trickles from his tongue. 
His chin is rather retreating and voluptuous. To analyze 
his face with physiognomical scrutiny, you may dis- 
cover many unimportant traits; but upon the first blush, 
or a superficial view, they are obscured like spots in 
the sun, by a radiance that dazzles and fascinates the 
sight. 

"In company Burr is rather taciturn. When he speaks 
it is with such animation, with such apparent frankness 
and negligence as would induce a person to believe he was 
a man of guileless and ingenuous heart, but in my opin- 
ion there is no human more reserved, mysterious and in- 
scrutable. 

" I have heard a great deal of Chesterfield and the graces. 
Surely Burr is the epitome — the essence of them all, for 
never were their charms displayed with such potency and 
irresistible attraction. He seems passionately fond of fe- 
male society and there is no being better calculated to 
succeed and shine in that sphere. To the ladies he is all 
attention — all devotion — in conversation he gazes on them 
with complacency and rapture, and when he addresses 
them it is with that smiling affability, those captivat- 
ing gestures, that je ne sais quoi, those desolating looks, 
that soft, sweet and insinuating eloquence, which takes 
the soul captive, before it can prepare for defence. In 
short he is the most perfect model of an accomplished 
gentleman that could be found, even by the wanton im- 
agination of poetry or fiction. But alas! my friend, what 



286 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

avails those splendid talents, that transcendent address, 
nay, all the blessings that heaven can bestow, without 
that solace, that inestimable boon, content and tranquility ? 
Burr is an exemplary, an illustrious instance of the capri- 
ciousness of popular admiration, and the mutability of 
human glory and felicity. But why should we wonder at 
popular instability and clamor — a discordant voice that 
vilifies and arraigns even Omnipotence itself? The cir- 
cumstance that has thus contributed to blast the popularity 
and poison the peace and happiness of this unfortunate 
man, is lamentable indeed; but he who will presume to as- 
cribe it to a corruption or depravity of heart, rather than to 
the fallibility of man, and the frailty of human passions, 
must be blinded by his own venom, and utterly estranged 
to every sentiment of compassion and that lenient and 
divine maxim which instructs us, that where opposing 
presumptions are of equal weight, the scale should always 
predominate on the side of mercy. Confident I am that 
there is no person more sensibly, more deeply touched 
with grief, or more sincerely penitent for this misfortune, 
than he who was the instrument. Yes, my friend, even 
Burr, the inimitable, the incomparable Burr, is disturbed, 
is unhappy! Often did I mark the perturbation of his 
mind, the agonizing sensations which wrung his too sus- 
ceptible heart, and which in spite of his philosophy and 
sprightliness, wrote themselves in the darkest shades on 
his countenance; and when I beheld the melancholy, the 
saturnine clouds, which often enveloped his bleeding, his 
magnanimous soul, my feelings were melted with a thrill- 
ing, a sublime sympathy — the tears started in my eyes, 
and could I have given them the efficacy of the angels, I 
would have expiated his crime, — I would have blotted out 



THE BURR CONSPIRACY 287 

the imputation from the memory of man, and the records 
of Heaven ! " ^ 

After a brief stop in Louisville, Burr hastened on to St. 
Louis to report his observations to Wilkinson, To his 
astonishment he found the General cold, and irresponsive. 
Wilkinson w^as a coward at heart, and, having carefully- 
sounded his officers and men, during Burr's absence, he 
had found them all true to the Union. There was not a 
second traitor among them. This discovery had opened 
his eyes, and, in response to Burr's descriptions of dis- 
content in the Southwest, he replied: 

"If you have not profited more by your journey in other 
respects than in this, you would better have stayed at 
Washington. The Western people disaffected to the gov- 
ernment ! They are bigoted to Jefferson and Democracy." ^ 

He, however, consented to give Burr a letter to Harrison, 
Governor of the Indiana Territory, strongly urging him to 
get the former chosen a delegate to Congress from that 
region; a request which he subsequently explained as hav- 
ing been made in order to turn Burr aside from his doubt- 
ful plans, by placing again before him the possibility of 
an honest career. He also claimed, when circumstances 
made a defence necessary, that he had at the same time dis- 
patched a letter to Robert Smith, Secretary ®f the Navy, 
warning him to keep a strict watch on Burr's movements; 
though Smith strangely failed to recall having received 
such a communication. 

Having visited the Indiana Territory, stopping at Cin- 
cinnati, Chillicothe, and Marietta, Burr returned to Phila- 
delphia toward the end of the year 1805. The next few 

1 The "Palladium," Frankfort, September 7, 1805. 

' Parton's "Burr," p. 401; Powell's "Nullification and Secession," p. 162. 



288 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

months he spent in attempts to enhst the support and 
cooperation of prominent men, especially those having 
authority in the Navy, for he felt that the presence of a 
considerable naval force at the mouth of the Mississippi 
was desirable, if not essential, to the success of his scheme. 
Eaton had lately returned from his Mediterranean trip, 
in no good humor with the Government. He had been at 
great pains to raise an army in Egypt and lead it across 
the Lybian Desert to Derne, expecting that Commodore 
Barron would then cooperate with him in an attack upon 
Tripoli. Just at the critical moment, however, he had 
found himself deserted, a treaty having been signed with 
the ruling Pasha of Tripoli, the provisions of which Eaton 
regarded as disgraceful. His resentment at this treatment 
was great, and Burr, totally misjudging the man, supposed 
him in a humor for any kind of revenge against his govern- 
ment. "He therefore," says Eaton,^ "laid open his project 
of revolutionizing the territory West of the Alleghanies; 
establishing an independent empire there, New Orleans 
to be the capital and himself the chief; and thence, organiz- 
ing a military force on the waters of the Mississippi, carry 
conquest to Mexico. . . . From the tenor of much con- 
versation on the subject of Wilkinson's cooperation, I 
was prevailed on to believe that the plan of revolution 
meditated by Colonel Burr and communicated to me, 
had been concerted with General Wilkinson and would 
have his cooperation." ^ Wishing to draw Burr out, as he 
says, Eaton encouraged him to talk, and was further in- 
formed that he had a large following in the West and in 
the Spanish territories, and would turn Congress out of 

1 Eaton's Deposition, " Palladium," January i, 1807. 

2 Eaton's Deposition. 



THE BURR CONSPIRACY 289 

doors, assassinate the President, capture the national 
treasury, and become " Protector of an energetic govern- 
ment," if only he could gain the marine corps, and secure 
the help of such men as Truxton, Decatur and Preble. 
To which Eaton replied in effect, according to his own 
account, that his next step would be to have his throat 
cut by the Yankee militia. 

Having become possessed of these enlightened plans, 
Eaton cautioned the President that, if Colonel Burr was 
not disposed of, we should, within eighteen months, have 
an insurrection, if not a revolution, on the waters of the 
Mississippi. Jefferson's reply was that he had confidence 
in the loyalty of the Western people, and Eaton was thus 
prevented from venturing upon more specific details.^ 

While this intrigue was going on in the East, Burr was 
strengthening his hold upon less cautious citizens in the 
Western country. During his tour of the West he had 
opened correspondence with Herman Blennerhassett, an 
eccentric Irishman, filled with the politico-romantic notions 
which Southey and Coleridge had made so famous.^ Blen- 
nerhassett had been a man of considerable wealth, but had 
repaired to a little island in the Ohio River, near the present 
site of Marietta, Ohio, where he had spent some forty 
thousand dollars in building and fitting up a house of "ori- 
ental ugliness,"^ and was now beginning to catch un- 
comfortably distinct glimpses of the bottom of his purse. 
This latter fact being as yet unknown. Burr followed up 
the acquaintance by letters embodying vague and guarded 
hints, intended to elicit confidence and a reply.'* In his 

1 "Palladium," January i, 1807. 

2 Hildreth's "Second Series," II, p. 596. 

3 Picture, Safford's "Blennerhassett Papers," p. 112. 
*Ibid., p. 115. 

Kentucky — 19 



290 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

hope of procuring an ally he was not deceived. On De- 
cember 21, 1805, Blennerhassett wrote that, although 
uninformed as to the nature of Burr's plans, he would 
be honored in being "associated with you in any con- 
templated enterprise you would permit me to partici- 
pate in," provided he could suitably dispose of his resi- 
dence and island.^ 

To this Burr replied that he had plans which he felt 
certain would be acceptable and profitable to a man, 
"whose talents and acquirements seem to have destined 
you for something more than a vegetable life." ^ 

A communication from Philadelphia follows (July 24, 
1806), showing a rapid advance in the friendship. It 
declares, "... I shall ... be at your house before the 
20th. of August. Let me find you at home or not far 
oflF. . . ." 

This engagement he kept, and on the appointed day, in 
company with his daughter and Colonel De Pestre, his con- 
fidential agent in charge of the intrigues with the Spanish 
Court, Burr arrived at Blennerhassett's Island, prepared 
to complete the conquest of the poor, deluded Celt. 

His general method of procedure was simple. He told 
each man the story which he deemed most likely to en- 
list him in the enterprise, intending to entangle him so 
completely that escape would be impossible, even should 
he desire to retreat, when the whole truth should become 
known to him. "We know," says the "Palladium"^ in 
commenting upon this fact, "that to one man of celebrity 
he has proposed one species of project, the erection of a 

1 Safford's " Blennerhassett Papers," p. 116, for full text of the letter. 

2 Ibid., p. 120. The letter is dated, Washington City, April 15, 1806. 

3 "Palladium," January 15, 1807. 



THE BURR CONSPIRACY 29 1 

new government beyond the Ohio. We also know that 
to another gentleman, much more distinguished and emi- 
nent in the eyes of the country and the world, he suggested 
another project, which extended so far as the seizure of 
Vera Cruz. . . . To the Yazoo [land owners] ... he 
held out the realization of their speculation; and behold 
they have not only deposited immense sums in the Western 
country, but they have conveyed through British Canada 
brass field pieces to be ready for a great occasion. 

"To the disaffected and disappointed few (for in Ken- 
tucky they are very few indeed) he held forth the tempta- 
tion of a new and separate government, and the vast 
advantages to be derived to their trade by a disconnection 
from the Atlantic States. 

"To others who had views and speculations in Louisiana 
he held out the name of Baron Bastrop's grant. 

"To others the idea of a new government comprehend- 
ing East Mexico and Louisiana under an Emperor — 
which Emperor he was to be! 

"The grand temptation in the first instance, when the 
force was marshalled and the plot ripe, to seduce all the 
deluded into an overt act, was seizure upon the treasures 
of Mexico — this was to be the prelude to all the sub- 
sequent establishments — they were to plunder Mexico and 
build up cities and navies with the rapine." 

To Blennerhassett he told part of the truth. He said 
that he had discovered that the people of the new territory 
were seriously disaffected to the Union. That, unless 
prompt measures were taken to prevent it, they would 
"fling themselves into the arms of any foreign power 
which should pledge itself to protect them." ^ That when 

1 Safford's "Blennerhassett Papers," p. 124. 



292 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

this was done the Western States and Territories would 
have the choice of remaining in the Union, or of joining 
with the rest of the West, to which latter course their in- 
terests would ultimately force them. The results he left 
to the imagination of his infatuated listener, assuring him, 
however, that neither outcome would interrupt his own 
plans; and concluding with the declaration that the views 
of the Administration were fully known to him, and that 
the invasion of Mexico would be pleasing to Mr. Jefferson.^ 

This is the interview which figures so largely in the mas- 
terly picture drawn by Wirt, in his famous speech on Burr 
and Blennerhassett, at the trial in Richmond, in which 
he depicts the guileless Irishman, as "dazzled by visions 
of diadems, and stars, and garters, and titles of nobility." 

Leaving his daughter in charge of Mrs. Blennerhassett, 
Burr now began the process of recruiting men for his ex- 
pedition and making final preparations. Fifteen " large 
bateaux " to accommodate five hundred men, and a keel 
boat for carrying provisions, were ordered at Blennerhas- 
sett's cost,^ and, while they were building, Burr contin- 
ued his trip with the object of increasing his following. 

Blennerhassett busied himself in writing for the "Ohio 
Gazette" a series of articles signed "Querist," setting 
forth the reasons which should induce the western country 
to separate from the Union, and preparing the people for 
the great event, which he dimly perceived to be at hand; 
but the nature of which he did not fully comprehend. 

These are the essays which caused the publication in 
the "Western World," of a series of articles, denouncing 
Burr and his followers, and warning the country against 

1 Safford's "Blennerhassett Papers," p. 125. 

2 Ibid., pp. 127, 131. 



THE BURR CONSPIRACY 293 

them. John Wood, one of the editors, had for some time 
been interested in ferreting out the facts concerning the 
connections between Wilkinson, Sebastian and other in- 
triguers with the Spanish authorities. His paper had been 
filled with articles ^ charging Sebastian with being a pen- 
sioner of Spain; and it was chiefly due to these articles 
that the Kentucky House of Representatives had appointed 
a special committee often, "to enquire into the fact, and 
such other facts relating thereto, as may be deemed proper 
for investigation." This committee, after meeting for 
three days, had agreed unanimously "to a resolution, ex- 
pressive of the judge's guilt." Sebastian had then con- 
fessed his crime, and prudently resigned his oflfice, before 
the House had had an opportunity to act upon the re- 
port.^ 

Such was the record of the "Western World," which 
now turned its attention to the mysterious preparations of 
Aaron Burr, and, on October 15, sounded the warning in 
no uncertain terms. ^ 

"The people of Kentucky have seen published from 
the 'Ohio Gazette,' (which had its origin and stand at 
Marietta, and which is supposed to be under the influence 
of Colonel Burr), an article in which the idea of disun- 
ion by the Alleghany mountains is openly avowed, and 
publicly advocated. This is but the idea of the Spanish 
associates, upon a more extensive scale, and with a more 
imposing aspect. The man who is held up in front, and 
at the head of this new plan of dismembering the Union 

1 Clay's "Memoir," p. 30, assigns these articles to the pen of Humphrey 
Marshall. 

2 Article in "Palladium," December 4, 1806. The Report of the Committee 
is printed in an extra edition of the "Palladium," of December 8, 1806. 

8 Marshall, II, pp. 386-392, quotes full text. 



294 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

of the States, is now among us, while his secret and mys- 
terious movements indicate the management and com- 
bination of some plan of operations, which will not bear 
the public view and examination. It is announced as a 
fact, and doubtless is true, that a number of gun boats 
and a schooner of singular construction, are preparing for 
this man, on the Ohio river. These can but be considered 
as preparations for some military expedition. But whether 
it is intended for the Spanish mines of Santa Fe, the city 
of New Orleans, or the Spanish territory on the Gulf of 
Mexico, or elsewhere, is all uncertainty and conjecture. 
Yet that a blow is to be struck somewhere, I have no 
doubt. 

"We are taught to believe that this man's fortunes are 
such as to tempt him to desperate enterprises; his genius 
capable of planning those which are bold and extensive. 
It is believed he holds no public commission, nor any 
authority under the United States . . . we must suppose 
the President uninformed of the fact. We must hope that 
so soon as he is informed, effectual means will be resorted 
to, for the suppression of these measures. . . . 

"... In this way is the public mind to be corrupted ? 
in this way are the people to be prepared for conspiracy, 
insurrection and disunion ? When it shall be clearly 
manifested that the public mind will bear the traitor in 
high office . . . then shall we see spring up amongst us, 
such men as the Roman Marius, Sulla, Cataline, and 
Caesar. . . . The Spanish Association was but the germ 
of the present conspiracy against the Union, as Marius, 
Sulla and Cataline, produced in Caesar, the Conqueror of 
his Country. 

" In 1788 the Kentucky Spanish Association was reduced 



THE BURR CONSPIRACY 295 

to a plan which had its definite objects; its views were 
unfolded by the associates, and happily defeated, at that 
time, by a manifestation of the public will. But the 
people were never awakened to a full sense of their danger, 
and . . . quietly . . . yielded themselves up to the rule 
of those who would have betrayed them . . . the con- 
spirators . . . have contrived to occupy most of the im- 
portant public offices, under the change of government. 

"This state of things, . , . has given rise to a new 
conspiracy, for efi^ecting disunion, the outline of which we 
see traced in the publication from Ohio. . . . 

"Had I the tongues of saints and of angels, I would 
exert their utmost eloquence to impress on your minds 
the importance of Union. Union! An idea inspired by 
Heaven itself, when in the councils of its benevolence, it 
determined to make this, with the Atlantic portion of 
America, free and independent. 

"... In union! there are peace, safety and happi- 
ness — there are laws, justice and humanity — there are 
morality, religion and piety . . . elegances, comforts and 
decorations of life. There are riches, honor, and glory — 
domestic tranquility, internal security, civil liberty and 
national independence. 

"In disunion! what a melancholy and distressing con- 
trast; separate confederacies, or state sovereignties; per- 
petual rivalries, and inveterate enemies of each other. 
Hence ruthless jealousy, hot contention, and bloody war — 
heavy expenses, dissolute morals, private misery, and 
public distress ... if we cannot live in union — we can- 
not live in peace." 

Shortly after this startling accusation had been cir- 
culated, Aaron Burr again appeared in Lexington. In 



296 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

order to cover up the real object of his visit,^ which was 
to complete the organization of his followers in this region, 
he had arranged that his daughter and her husband, Mr. 
Alston, should meet him here. They received a dis- 
tinguished welcome, but the rumors, which had been con- 
firmed by the "Western World," continued to circulate: 
and, in order to quiet public anxiety. Burr announced that 
the object of his movements was the colonization of a tract 
of several thousand acres ^ which he had secured upon the 
Washita River.^ Rumor, however, would not down, and 
the reports which Burr was thus vainly trying to stifle in 
Kentucky, gradually spread through the country, until 
they came to the ears of the President, who, thus warned 
a second time, sent Graham, Secretary of the Orleans 
Territory, as his secret agent to investigate the situation 
and, with the help of the civil and military authorities of 
the West,^ to bring offenders to justice. 

On the sixth of November Burr dispatched a letter to 
Blennerhassett in which he says: 

"Yesterday Mr. Jos. Davis (Daveiss), the District At- 
torney of the United States, made an application to the 
federal court at Frankfort ^ for a warrant to apprehend 
me for treasonable practice, as on some suspicion thereof. 
The charge is not well defined by my informant, but the 
substance is, 'a design to attack the Spanish dominions, 
and thereby endanger the peace of the United States.' 

1 Safford's "Blennerhassett Papers," p. 40. 

2 " One million French acres." See "Palladium," December 18, 1806. 

3 For full description of these lands, formerly the property of Baron Bastrop, 
see the "Palladium," Frankfort, December 18, 1806. 

4 Jefferson's Message of January 22, 1807. 

6 Safford's "Blennerhassett Papers," p. 153. "Palladium," Frankfort, 
November 6, 1806. 



THE BURR CONSPIRACY 297 

"How this charge was supported I have not heard; 
but absurd and ridiculous as it may appear, the Judge has 
taken time until this day to consider if he should refuse to 
grant the warrant. He must expect a tornado of abuse 
from the 'W. World' and some other papers. . . . Un- 
fortunately this being a proceeding on suspicion and pre- 
vious to any inquiry by a grand jury, no immediate trial 
can be had. . . . You perceive, my dear sir, that this 
step will embarass me in my project of the Washita set- 
tlement. . . ." 

This letter indicates that, even at this time, Blenner- 
hassett was not informed of the real object of Burr's 
plans; but was still laboring under the delusion that he 
was engaged in a project for the settlement of the Bastrop 
lands. 

The action of the District Attorney, in taking the step 
here described, was based upon a careful investigation of 
such facts as could be ascertained with reference to Burr's 
projects. After having satisfied himself as to their unlaw- 
fulness, he had sent repeated warnings to the President, 
giving him such information as he had gathered, and 
mentioning such names as he felt could certainly be 
identified with the plot. The occasional replies which 
he had received were carefully guarded; but it must be 
presumed that Jefferson had not failed to note every bit 
of information, from this or any other source, with ref- 
erence to the conspiracy. Orders had already been issued 
to the "Governors of the Mississippi and Orleans Terri- 
tories, and to the commanders of the land and naval 
forces, to be on their guard against surprise and in con- 
stant readiness to resist any enterprises that might be 
attempted; " and instructions were about to be dispatched 



298 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

to General Wilkinson, directing him to come to a speedy 
agreement with the Spanish commander on the Sabine, 
and fall back to the east side of the Mississippi.^ These 
orders Wilkinson had anticipated, and was already en- 
gaged in putting his district into a condition of defence, 
before the beginning of Daveiss' process against Burr 
in the Kentucky court. ^ 

The affidavit ^ upon which Daveiss proposed to ground 
his indictment declares that; "... The Deponent is 
informed, and doth verily believe, that a certain Aaron 
Burr Esq. late vice president of the . . . United States, 
for several months past, hath been, and is now engaged 
in preparing, and setting on foot, and in providing and 
preparing the means, for a military expedition and enter- 
prise within this district, for the purpose of descending 
the Ohio and Mississippi therewith, and making war 
upon the subjects of the King of Spain, who are in a 
state of peace with the people of these United States; 
to wit: on the provinces of Mexico, on the westwardly 
side of Louisiana which appertain and belong to the 
King of Spain, an European prince with whom these 
United States are at peace. And said deponent further 
saith, that he is informed and fully believes that the 
above charge, can be, and will be, fully substantiated by 
evidence, provided this honorable court will grant com- 
pulsory process to bring witnesses to testify thereto. 
And the deponent further saith, that he is informed, 
and fully believes, that the agents and emissaries of the 
said Burr, have purchased up, and are continuing to pur- 

1 Message of January 22, 1807. 

2 "Palladium," Frankfort, November 6, 1806. 

3 Quoted in Judge Innis's opinion, "Palladium," Frankfort, November 13, 
1806. 



THE BURR CONSPIRACY 299 

chase, large stores of provisions, as if for an army; while 
the said Burr seems to conceal in great mystery from the 
people at large, his purposes and projects, while the minds 
of good people of this district, seem agitated with the 
current rumor that a military expedition against some 
neighboring power, is preparing by said Aaron Burr. 
Wherefore, said attorney, on behalf of the said U. States, 
prays, that due process issue to compel the personal ap- 
pearance of the said Aaron Burr, in this court; and also of 
such witnesses as may be necessary on behalf of the said 
United States; and that this honorable court, will duly 
recognize the said Aaron Burr, to answer such charges as 
may be preferred against him in the premises; and in 
the meantime, that he desist and refrain from all further 
preparation and proceeding in the same armament within 
the said United States, or the territories or dependencies 
thereof." ^ 

After reading this affidavit, Daveiss explained that he 
was prepared to conduct a prosecution upon the case as 
to an expedition against Mexico, but added: "I have in- 
formation on which I can rely, that all the western terri- 
tories are the next object of the scheme — and finally, all 
the region of the Ohio is calculated as falling into the vortex 
of the new proposed revolution." The Federal statute,^ 
which the attorney claimed had been violated by Colonel 
Burr, was then read, and the judge announced that he 
would consider the case and would deliver his opinion 
upon the following Saturday. 

At the appointed time he took up the question, over- 
ruling the motion for a process against Burr as unprece- 

1 Marshall, II, pp. 393-394; "Palladium," November 13, 1806. 

2 "Palladium," November 13, 1806, contains the statute. 



300 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

dented, and resting on the discretion of the court. ^ In 
the meantime Burr had come in and insisted that the trial 
should take place, in order that he might be given an op- 
portunity to repel, in a proper ^ and dignified manner, 
the charges which had been so openly brought against 
him. It was accordingly arranged that the trial should 
be opened on Wednesday, November nth: the sub- 
poenas were sent out to such persons as the attorney de- 
sired as witnesses; and the Grand Jury was impaneled of 
persons then in court. After the swearing in of these 
jurors, they were adjourned to meet on the day appointed 
for the trial. ^ 

The attorney felt that the success of his prosecution 
was assured: though Burr was active and skillful in pre- 
paring for his defence, and had selected as his counsel 
Henry Clay, now a rising young lawyer and politician of 
the State, lately chosen to fill a temporary vacancy in 
the United States Senate.^ 

Meantime the news had been widely circulated that 
Aaron Burr, late Vice-President, was to be tried at Frank- 
fort upon charge of "High Misdemeanor," and, on the 
appointed day, the town "was crowded with persons from 
all quarters, beyond any former example." ^ Many wit- 
nesses had arrived, and intense eagerness and impatience 
were manifested on every hand. 

About one o'clock Burr appeared, in company with his 

1 "Palladium," November 13, 1806, gives text of the opinion. 

2 Butler, p. 313; Marshall, II, p. 395. 

3 "Palladium," November it,, 1806. 

* The vacancy had been caused by the resignation of Gen. John Adair. 
Colton's "Private Correspondence of Henry Clay," p. 14, note. Burr's "Letter 
to Clay" asking his legal aid is given on p. 13 of same volume. 

6 "Palladium," November 13, 1806. 



THE BURR CONSPIRACY 30 1 

counsel. All was in apparent readiness, and the judge 
was on the point of delivering his charge, when Daveiss 
rose and moved that the Grand Jury be dismissed on the 
ground that Davis Floyd, an important witness for the 
prosecution, was not present.^ The disappointment of 
the audience was quite evident, public sentiment, which 
had, from the first, been strongly in favor of Colonel Burr 
exhibiting itself in a burst of indignation. Daveiss, how- 
ever, successfully persisted in his demand for postpone- 
ment, in spite of the ridicule and laughter of the specta- 
tors, while Burr, having gravely requested that the cause 
of the delay be recorded, took a few moments in which to 
address to the judge remarks intended for the audience,^ 
as he fully realized that public opinion would be an impor- 
tant factor in the success or failure of his schemes. He 
told them that their fears were groundless, as they would 
see if the attorney should ever get ready for the trial, 
which, he insinuated, would never be the case. His man- 
ner was so confident, and the marvelous fascination of his 
personality so overpowering, that many who had been in- 
clined to credit the accusations, felt themselves irresistibly 
won over to his side, and disposed to regard him as an 
innocent gentleman, pursued by the hatred and jealousy 
of his political enemies. ""^ 

After the dismissal of this first Grand Jury, Burr sought 
to induce John Rowan, Secretary of State for Kentucky, 
and a member of Congress elect, to engage with Clay as 
his counsel; but Rowan declined, upon the ground of his 
recent election to Congress, declaring that he did not think 
it proper, under such conditions, to engage as a party in a 

1 "Memoir of Henry Clay," p. 32. 

2 Marshall, II, p. 397. 



302 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

controversy which might involve fidehty to the general 
government. This excuse Burr accepted for the time; but, 
upon a subsequent occasion, he reopened the question, and 
began an argument concerning the objections, which that 
gentleman had expressed, to appearing as his attorney. 
His remarks, however, were cut short by Rowan's state- 
ment that, "he had been taught from early childhood not 
to reason on subjects which his feeling in the first instance 
condemned." ^ This troubled Mr. Clay, also a member 
elect of the Federal Congress, and he asked Rowan's 
advice as to whether he should not also withdraw from 
the case, upon the same excuse. Rowan suggested that, 
in view of the fact of Clay's having already undertaken 
the case, it would be a better course to demand of his 
client, "a declaration upon his honor, that he was en- 
gaged in no enterprise hostile to the peace or union of the 
country." ^ And well it was for the "Great Commoner" 
that this precaution was taken, as otherwise his defence 
of Burr might have seriously injured his reputation as a 
patriot. To Clay's demand. Burr responded in the fol- 
lowing words, dated December ist, 1806. 

"I have no design, nor have I taken any measure to 
promote a dissolution of the Union, or a separation of 
any one or more States from the residue. I have neither 
published a line on this subject, nor has any one, through 
my agency, or with my knowledge. I have no design to 
intermeddle with the government, or to disturb the tran- 
quility of the United States, nor of its territories, or any 
part of them. I have neither issued, nor signed, nor 
promised a commission to any person, for any purpose. 

1 Butler, p. 316. 

2 Ibid., p. 315. 



THE BURR CONSPIRACY 303 

I do not own a musket, nor a bayonet, nor any single 
article of military stores, nor does any person for me, by 
my authority, or my knowledge. My views have been 
explained to, and approved by several of the principal 
officers of the government, and, I believe are well under- 
stood by the administration, and seen by it with com- 
placency; they are such as every man of honor and every 
good citizen must approve. Considering the high station 
you now fill in our national councils, I have thought these 
explanations proper, as well to counteract the chimeri- 
cal tales, which malevolent persons have industriously 
circulated, as to satisfy you that you have not espoused 
the cause of a man in any way unfriendly to the laws, 
the government or the interests of his country." ^ 

This daring falsehood completely deceived Clay, and 
he entered upon plans for Burr's defence with the enthu- 
siasm and ability, which later made him such a power 
in the affairs of the nation. 

Meanwhile Daveiss had ascertained that Floyd was at 
liberty to answer his summons, and, convinced that all 
necessary witnesses could now be brought together, he 
again made arrangements for the prosecution.^ A second 
Grand Jury was impaneled and sworn, and Burr and his 
counsel once more appeared in court, but the District At- 
torney, again embarrassed by the absence of an important 

1 Full text, Colton's "Private Correspondence of Henry Clay," pp. 13-14; 
Prentice, "Biography of Henry Clay," 1831 Ed., pp. 32-33; "Memoir of Henry 
Clay," p. 33. 

2 "In the Federal Court on Tuesday morning last, the Attorney for the Uni- 
ted States, renewed his motion for a grand jury, to enquire into the conduct of 
Col. Burr, which the court granted, and directed the Marshall to have the Jury 
ready on Tuesday next. . , . The Attorney introduced his motion by observing 
that Mr. Davis Floyd . . . had returned. . . ." "Palladium," Frankfort, No- 
vember 27, 1806. 



f( 



304 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

witness, this time General John Adair, declared that, as 
the latter's testimony was essential to the prosecution of 
the case, he must be granted still further delay. 

At this, Mr. Clay entered a strong protest, stating that 
Colonel Burr had business engagements which made it 
extremely inconvenient for him to remain so long in attend- 
ance upon a process, which gave no promise of ever being 
completed. He demanded that the attorney proceed at 
once to the trial, or dismiss the case and abandon the 
prosecution. 

Daveiss replied that there was no need for Burr and his 
counsel to appear in court until indictment was found, — 
but that he, as attorney for the United States, had the right 
to determine when the case should be opened. 

Then followed a long and impassioned debate,^ ending 
with the decision of the court that the case must be opened 
at once, or the jury discharged. Daveiss, thus forced to 
proceed, declared that he would present his indictment 
to the jury on the following morning and moved an attach- 
ment against General Adair. 

Against the granting of such an attachment Burr's 
counsel argued that, as that witness had not been required 
to attend at any particular hour, but only on that day; 
and, as the day was not yet spent, he was not yet in con- 
tumacy, and could not therefore be fairly subject to at- 
tachment. This argument prevailed, and the court re- 
fused the process. 

The session was then adjourned until ten o'clock the 
following morning, and Daveiss set about devising some 

1 The details of trial and evidence in this case are given in the "Palladium," 
Frankfort, December 11, 1806. It is reproduced quite fully in Marshall, II, 
pp. 404-409. 



' THE BURR CONSPIRACY 305 

means of delaying the process against Burr until the 
attendance of Adair could be secured. The latter's name 
had been often connected with that of Burr, as a partner 
in the mysterious projects, and he had even avowed a 
knowledge of them, though stoutly denying any participa- 
tion in them.^ To bring an indictment against him, there- 
fore, seemed possible, and by this means his attendance 
might be secured in time for the process against Burr which 
was to follow. 

Accordingly, upon the reassembling of the court (De- 
cember 3, 1806), Daveiss delivered to the foreman of the 
Grand Jury a paper, saying in an audible voice, "This is 
an indictment against General John Adair." The indict- 
ment charged Adair with setting on foot, and preparing 
a "military expedition and enterprise . . . against the 
dominions of the King of Spain, who is an European 
prince, at peace with the . . . United States." ^ 

Daveiss' plan was successful in securing the attendance 
of Adair, who, on the following day, made his appearance 
in court. On the same day, the jury returned the indict- 
ment against him, with the verdict — 

"Not a true bill." 

This failure, however, was an incident of small impor- 
tance to Daveiss. His chief witnesses were now present, 
and he was prepared to proceed with the more serious busi- 

1 In a publication made by Adair at Washington (March i, 1807), he says: 
" So far as I know or believe of the intentions of Colonel Burr (and my enemies 
will agree that I am not ignorant on this subject) they were to prepare and lead 
an expedition into Mexico, predicated on a war between the two governments; 
without a war I knew he could do nothing. I thought his object honorable 
and worthy the attention of any man; but I was not engaged in it." Quoted, 
Marshall, II, pp. 428-429. 

2 Full text of indictment, "Palladium," Frankfort, December 11, 1806. 

Kentucky — 20 



306 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

ness of the indictment against Burr. He presented it in 
the following words: 

"United States of America, Kentucky district, to wit: 
The grand jury of the United States in and for the body of 
the said district, do on their oaths present, that a certain 
Aaron Burr, late of the city of New York, and Vice Presi- 
dent of the said U. S. did with force and arms, at the county 
of Fayette, in said district, on the twenty-fifth day of 
November last past, wilfully and unlawfully, and from 
evil premeditation, then and there set on foot, and pre- 
pare for a military expedition against the dominions of the 
King of Spain, who is an European prince, at peace with 
the said United States, to wit: against the provinces of 
said King, in North America, contrary to the laws of the 
said United States, in such cases provided, and against 
the peace and dignity thereof. 

"And the Jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, 
do further present, that the said Burr did at said district, 
to wit: At the County of Jefferson, on the day and in the 
year aforesaid, then and there, wilfully and unlawfully, 
with force and arms, prepare and provide the means for 
carrying on a military expedition and enterprise against 
the dominions of the King of Spain aforesaid, who is at 
peace with the said United States to wit: the provinces 
in North America, which are of the dominions of the said 
King of Spain, contrary to the laws of the United States, 
in such cases provided, and against the peace and dignity 
of the said United States. 

"And so the Jurors aforesaid, upon their oath afore- 
said, do say that the said Aaron Burr, is guilty of 
the misdemeanors aforesaid, contrary to the laws of 



THE BURR CONSPIRACY 307 

the United States, and against the peace and dignity 
thereof.^ 

"J. H. Daveiss for U. S." 

The indictment having been read, the Grand Jury re- 
tired, to examine the witnesses and to frame their verdict 
in private. The details of the examination are not known; 
but we do know that Wood and Street, editors of the 
" Western World," presented their testimony with the other 
witnesses. They had loudly proclaimed their intimate ac- 
quaintance with Burr's projects, and his contracts and en- 
gagements with John Brown, James Wilkinson, John Adair 
and the rest; but they strangely failed to convince the jury, 
their testimony being all in favor of Burr. They declared 
themselves satisfied that the contracts and engagements 
with John Brown and General Wilkinson, referred to in 
their articles in the "Western World," related "only to 
opening a canal on the Ohio." ^ The explanation will 
readily occur to anyone familiar with the political methods 
of Aaron Burr. 

On December 5 the Grand Jury came into court with 
the verdict — 

"Not a true bill," 

and the foreman proceeded to inform the court, that, in 
consideration of the unusual public excitement, caused by 
the subjects which had been before the Grand Jury, they 
had thought it their duty to present the following report: 
"The Grand Jury are happy to inform the court, that 
no violent disturbance of the public tranquility, or breach 
of the laws, has come to their knowledge. 

1 "Palladium," December ii, 1806. 

2 "Palladium," Frankfort, December 11, 1806, gives their evidence in the 
case. 



3o8 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

"We have no hesitation in declaring that having care- 
fully examined and scrutinized all the testimony which 
has come before us, as well on the charges against Aaron 
Burr, as those contained in the indictment preferred to us 
against John Adair, that there has been no testimony 
before us which does in the smallest degree, criminate the 
conduct of either of those persons; nor can we, from all 
the inquiries and investigation of the subject, discover 
that anything improper or injurious to the interests of 
the government of the United States, or contrary to the 
laws thereof, is designed or contemplated by either of 
them." 1 

This rejection of the indictment by the unanimous con- 
sent of the twenty-two members of the Grand Jury, was 
regarded by the community as a complete vindication of 
Burr and his friends; ^ but their exultation was of short 
duration. Graham, the President's private agent, had 
visited Marietta, and Blennerhassett, relying upon Burr's 
former statement to that effect, had mistaken him for a 
fellow conspirator, and revealed to him what he knew, and, 
more important still, what he did not know of Burr's 
plans.^ Graham had promptly applied to the Governor of 
Ohio to seize the boats and stores on the Muskingum, and 
the Ohio Legislature had authorized their capture, which 
had been immediately made.^ 

Meanwhile the President had received information 



1 "Palladium," Frankfort, December ii, 1806. 

2 Jefferson's "Message of January 22, 1807;" "Palladium," February 12, 
1807. 

3 Safford's "Blennerhassett Papers," pp. 155-156. 

4 "Palladium," December 25, 1806, for Message of the Governor of Ohio 
and details of the State's action. Also details in Governor's next message. 
"Palladium," January i, 1807. 



THE BURR CONSPIRACY 309 

which left no doubt in his mind as to Burr's intentions. 
General James Wilkinson had lost faith in the glorious 
enterprise, and had acted the part of double traitor by 
dispatching to Jefferson, a letter ^ reproducing, as he 
claimed, a cipher communication which Burr had sent 
him from Philadelphia, on July 29, 1806. This is the 
letter which figured so largely in Burr's subsequent trial 
at Richmond, and concerning which Chief Justice Mar- 
shall, who presided over that trial, declared: 

"To make the testimony of Gen. J. Wilkinson bear on 
Col. Burr it is necessary to consider as genuine, the letter 
stated by the former to be, as nearly as he can make it, 
an interpretation of one received from the latter in cipher. 
Exclude this letter, and nothing remains in the testimony 
which can in the most remote degree affect Col. Burr." ^ 
It reads as follows: ^ 

"Your letter, postmarked 13th. May, is received. At 
length I have obtained funds, and have actually com- 
menced. The eastern detachments from different points, 
and under different pretenses, will rendezvous on the 
Ohio, 1st. of November. Everything internal and external 
favors our views. Naval protection of England is secured. 
Truxton is going to Jamaica, to arrange with the admiral 
at that station. It will meet us at the Mississippi — Eng- 

1 Concerning this letter Jefferson, in his Message of January 22, 1807, says, 
"With the honor of a soldier and the fidelity of a good citizen . . . Wilkin- 
son . . . despatched a trusty ofl'icer to me with information of what had 
passed. . . ." See also "Memoir of Henry Clay," p. 35. 

2 "Palladium," April 30, 1807. 

3 In his affidavit, sworn to on December 26, 1S06, and sent to Congress with 
Jefferson's Special Message of January 26, 1807, Wilkinson pretends to have 
listened to Burr's propositions in order to get at the actual facts in the case, and 
thus be better able to defeat them. "Palladium," February 19, 1807, for text 
of his affidavit. 



3IO KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

land — Navy of the United States, are ready to join, and 
final orders are given to my friends and followers. It will 
be a host of choice spirits. Wilkinson shall be second to 
Burr only, and Wilkinson shall dictate the rank and pro- 
motion of his officers. Burr will proceed westward ist. of 
August, never to return. With him go his daughter and 
grandson. The husband will follow in October, with a 
corps of worthies. Send, forthwith, an intelligent friend 
with whom Burr may confer. He shall return immedi- 
ately with further interesting details; this is essential to 
harmony and concert of movement. Send a list of all per- 
sons known to Wilkinson west of the mountains, who could 
be useful, with a note delineating their character. By your 
messenger, send me four or five of the commissions of 
your officers which you can borrow under any pretence 
you please. They shall be retained faithfully. Already 
are orders given to the contractor to forward six months' 
provisions to points Wilkinson may name; this shall not 
be used until the last moment, and then under proper in- 
junctions. Our project, my dear friend, is brought to a 
point so long desired. Burr guarantees the result with his 
life, and honor, with the lives and honor, and the fortunes 
of hundreds, the best blood of our country. Burr's plan of 
operation is to move down rapidly from the falls, on the 
15th. of November, with the first five hundred or one 
thousand men, in light boats now constructing for that 
purpose, to be at Natchez between the 5th. and the 15th. of 
December, there to meet you, there to determine whether it 
will be expedient, in the first instance, to seize on, or pass 
by. Baton Rouge, ... on receipt of this, send Burr an an- 
swer . . . draw on Burr for all expenses, etc. The people 
of the country to which we are going are prepared to 



THE BURR CONSPIRACY 31 1 

receive us; their agents, now with Burr, say that if we will 
protect their religion, and will not subject them to a foreign 
power, that, in three weeks, all will be settled: The gods 
invite us to glory and fortune; it remains to be seen whether 
we deserve the boon. The bearer of this goes express to 
you, he will hand a formal letter of introduction to you, 
from Burr; he is a man of inviolable honor and perfect 
discretion, formed to execute rather than project, capable 
of relating facts with fidelity, and incapable of relating 
them otherwise. He is thoroughly informed of the plans 
and intentions of . . . and will disclose to you, as far as 
you inquire, and no further; he has imbibed a reverence 
for your character, and may be embarrassed in your 
presence; put him at ease, and he will satisfy you." ^ 

Two days after the receipt of this letter, Jefferson issued 
his Proclamation of November the twenty-seventh, ^ warn- 
ing all who had been led to take part in the unlawful 
enterprise, to withdraw from it, and requiring all civil and 
military officers of the United States, or of any State or 
Territory to search out and bring to justice, all who should 
be found to be engaged in it.' 

Graham, after accomplishing the capture of the arma- 
ment upon the Muskingum, hastened to Frankfort, where 
he easily persuaded the Legislature to pass an act "* similar 

1 "Palladium," February 12, 1807, for text; also Marshall, II, pp. 424-435; 
"Blennerhassett Papers," pp. 167, 169, etc. 

2 Text, "Palladium," December 25, 1806. The date of the receipt of Wil- 
kinson's letter is given in Jefferson's Message of January 22, 1807. 

3 A dispatch from New Orleans dated December 8, declared: "It is said his 
Excellency, General Wilkinson, has given orders to have all the forts of this place 
repaired, the city picketed in, and put in a complete state of defence." "Pal- 
ladium," January 15, 1807. 

*"An act to prevent unlawful warlike enterprises." Text, "Palladium," 
January i, 1807; see also Jefferson's Message of January 22, 1807. 



312 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

to that just passed in Ohio, and, under its provisions, 
militia were posted upon the banks of the river, with 
orders to capture such scattered remnants of Burr's forces 
as might attempt to pass down. 

Colonel Tyler, with four or five boats from the region 
of Beaver, Pennsylvania, had already passed the Falls, 
where David Floyd, with two or three other vessels, had 
joined him. Burr, who had gone on to Nashville, soon 
joined them with two boats and a few men. Even his 
courage must have failed at finding himself, instead of the 
leader of a gallant army of invasion, floating down the 
river with ten boats and less than a hundred men,^ bound 
for the conquest of an Empire. But as yet he was igno- 
rant of Wilkinson's treachery and the President's Procla- 
mation. As soon as these became known to him he realized 
that his cause was irreparably lost, and surrendered him- 
self to the civil authorities of the Mississippi Territory, 
where he was again presented to the Grand Jury for in- 
dictment, but acquitted for lack of evidence. Hearing 
that some military officers had been sent by Wilkinson 
from New Orleans to arrest him, he returned to his boats, 
discharged his men and plunged into the wilderness, in 
the hope of escaping to some British vessel lying off the 
Florida coast.^ 

At last, after many adventures, he was captured near 
a little village upon the Tombigbee, and taken to Rich- 

1 A letter dated Fort Massac, January 5, 1807, and addressed to General 
Andrew Jackson says, "On or about the 31st. ult. Col. Burr, late Vice President 
of the U. S. passed this, with about 10 boats, of different descriptions, navigated 
with about six men each, having nothing on board that would even suffer a con- 
jecture, more than a man bound to a market. . . . [Signed] Daniel Bissell, 
Capt. Commanding." "Palladium," February 5, 1807. 

2 "Palladium," March 26, 1807. 



THE BURR CONSPIRACY 313 

mond/ where five gentlemen furnished bond, to the amount 
of ten thousand dollars, for his appearance at the next 
Circuit Court of the United States, to be held on May 22, 
1807. 

Thus ends, so far as Kentucky history is concerned, 
the enterprise which President Jefferson characterized as: 

"The most extraordinary since the days of Don Quixote. 
It is so extraordinary that those who know his (Burr's) 
understanding would not believe it, if the proofs admitted 
doubt. He meant to place himself on the throne of Monte- 
zuma and extend his Empire to the Alleghany. . . ." ^ 

With the final arrest of Burr, and his trial at Richmond, 
we are not concerned.^ His part in the history of Ken- 
tucky was finished when his last boat passed out into the 
Mississippi: but it was long before the effects produced by 
his mysterious conspiracy, his trial and acquittal, disap- 
peared from the State. 

The imputation of disloyalty, so freely made against 
the Kentuckians during the days of Burr's preparations, 
was bitterly resented. They felt with justice that no sec^ 
tion of the country had been more often or more sorely 

lA notice dated Richmond, Va., March 27, reprinted in "Palladium" of 
April 23, 1807 says, "Aaron Burr, Ex Vice President of the U. States, is now in 
this city guarded as a state prisoner." Then follows an account, gleaned from 
his captors, of the details of his arrest. 

2 Parton's "Burr," p. 456. 

3 The ruling of John Marshall, who presided at that famous trial, gave rise ^ 
to the suspicion, doubtless wholly unjust, that he was a strong Burr partisan. 
The accusation, however, was particularly pleasing to the friends of John Brown, 
whose hospitable entertainment of Burr during his frequent visits to Frankfort, 
had firmly linked his name with that of the great conspirator. In October, 1807, 

a letter was sent him from his brother Sam Brown, then in New Orleans, in 
which the question is gleefully asked. "... How will Mr. Humphrey Marshall 
and his backers shape their course now that Brother John is so directly charged 
with being a partisan of Burr's and yielding to all Burr's wishes in the trial. . . ." 
Brown MSS. 



314 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

tempted to disunion, and that, in spite of all temptations, 
they had remained, as a people, staunchly loyal. To 
openly repudiate all connection or sympathy with Burr's 
projects, a mass meeting assembled at Lexington during 
the early days of January, 1807^ and, after appropriate 
patriotic addresses, adopted a resolution which declared : 

"... That all charges or insinuations against the 
people of this State, of disaffection to the union or govern- 
ment of the United States, are gross misapprehensions 
and without foundation," and it is not too much to claim 
that this resolution fairly represented public opinion in 
the Pioneer Commonwealth. 

1 Account, "Palladium," Januarys, 1807. 




CHAPTER XI 

KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF l8l2 

With Burr's trial and acquittal in 1807, foreign plots 
and schemes of revolution came to an end in Kentucky; 
but, even as they ceased, the international complications, in 
which the Federal Government had long been involved, 
began to claim the indignant attention of the pioneer com- 
monwealth. "The Palladium," early in July, 1807, con- 
tained this startling announcement: 

"Highly Important 
"Just as this paper was going to press we were in- 
formed that the U. S. frigate Chesapeake, Commodore 
Barron, has been fired on by the British man of war, the 
Leopard. The frigate, it appears, had on board three or 
four American Seamen who had been impressed by the 
British and from whom they had made their escape. The 
captain of the Leopard required them to be delivered up 
to him, which was refused. As soon as the frigate sailed 
(which was carrying out supplies to the Mediterranean) 
the Leopard followed, and off the capes of the Chesapeak 
Bay, attacked her, killed 7 or 8 men and wounded many 
others. The frigate, it appears, made no resistance, not 
having her guns prepared for action. After being much 
shattered by the unexpected attack, she consequently 
struck. The impressed men were taken out, and the 
frigate left to proceed as well as she could. We believe 
she has returned to port." 

315 



3l6 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

At once the hatred of England which, in Kentucky, had 
been smoldering since the days of Jay's treaty, leaped 
into a blaze. There were few firesides within the shadow 
of her forests, where tales of British wickedness had not 
served to beguile the long winter evenings; and the history 
of the series of British aggressions upon our commerce 
may be traced as clearly in the files of Kentucky news- 
papers as in the papers of the Coast States themselves. 
The significance of this incident, now known to history 
as "the affair of the Chesapeake," was, therefore, perfectly 
clear to the average Kentuckian. To him, as to his fellow 
countrymen of the East, it meant that England's contempt 
for the new Republic, so long manifested by studied acts 
of insult, had entered upon a new stage, where it was to 
express itself in open violence. Hitherto only merchant 
vessels had been subjected to the humiliation of a search 
by British captains; but, in the present instance, the insult 
had been offered to an American war ship, representing 
the sovereignty of a free and independent nation. 

Instantly the pioneers of Kentucky repaired to the 
nearest centers of population, to join with their fellows in 
war-talk and defiant resolutions. In all the chief towns of 
the State, mass meetings assembled, to voice the general 
sense of indignation against England, and to present 
resolutions of a warlike character, condemning this, and 
all similar "acts of piracy," and pledging loyal support 
to the administration.^ 

The administration of Thomas Jefferson, however, was 
not inclined, even in the face of strong provocation, to en- 

1 Copies of these resolutions appear, e. g., in "Palladium," July 30, Aug. 20, 
etc., 1807. Similar resolutions were common throughout the entire country at 
the time. See McMaster, III, pp. 259-267. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF l8l2 317 

courage the war spirit. The President had fixed his eyes 
upon one goal, that of "seeing an end of our national 
debt," ^ and refused to allow himself to be diverted from it. 

In response to the war cry from Kentucky, orders were 
indeed sent to the governor "to hold in readiness for im- 
mediate service 5,212 volunteers or drafts"; ^ but Kentucky 
waited in vain for the expected call to arms. 

The war spirit, however, continued to burn brightly, as 
is shown by the following entry in the journal of the Ken- 
tucky House of Representatives, under date of January 6, 
1808. 

"We cannot repress our indignation when contemplat- 
ing the acts of perfidy and murder of the British navy, 
and with one voice express a wish that the general govern- 
ment may adopt prompt and effective measures to support 
the insulted and degraded majesty of the American nation, 
and convince her lordly enemies that her rights shall not 
be invaded, nor her dignity insulted, with impunity. 

"... We are willing not only to express the public 
sentiment, but also to pledge our honor, our blood and 
treasure in support of such measures as may be adopted 
by the general government, to secure and protect the 
peace, dignity, and independence of union against foreign 
invasion, and to chastise and bring to a state of reason 
our haughty and imperious foes." ^ 

Jefferson, however, believed that he saw a peaceful 
means of compelling England and France to respect our 
flag; and he therefore entrusted the defence of American 

1 W. E. Curtis, "The True Thomas Jefferson," p. 170. 

2 "Palladium," July 30, 1807. See also Governor Scott's address to the 
Freemen and Soldiers of Kentucky, "Palladium," November 24, 1808; Mar- 
shall, II, p. 459; Butler, p. 327; McMaster, III, p. 264. 

3 The "Palladium," January 21, 1808. 



3l8 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

interests to an ertibargo (unlimited as to the time of its 
duration ^), under whose baneful shadow, his adminis- 
tration, so glorious at its beginning, came to a dishonored 
end. By the opening of January, 1809, it was evident 
that the embargo policy had failed, and its repeal was 
assured. 

But, even in the face of this complete failure, Kentucky 
remained loyal to Thomas Jefferson. Shortly before his 
retirement, her brilliant young adopted son, Henry Clay, 
after consultation with the newly elected Governor, 
Charles Scott, presented to the Legislature a set of reso- 
lutions,^ declaring the embargo, "a measure highly judi- 
cious and . . . the only honorable expedient to avoid 
war . . . ," and Thomas Jefferson, "entitled to the thanks 
of his country for the ability, uprightness, and intelligence 
which he has displayed in the management, both of our 
foreign relations and domestic concerns." 

Such wholesale commendation of a policy, which had 
so manifestly failed to accomplish the results desired by 
its author, called forth a protest from Humphrey Mar- 
shall, the only militant Federalist left in the Kentucky 
Legislature. Clearly discerning the utter futility of Jeffer- 
son's pusillanimous policy, he drafted and offered, as a 
substitute for Clay's resolutions, a series of his own,^ re- 
flecting upon Jefferson's administration, and calling for a 
repeal of the embargo. The only honorable or patriotic 
course open to the nation — so ran Marshall's resolutions — 

1 Details of adoption of embargo policy, McAIaster, III, pp. 276, 27S. The 
embargo went into force December 22, 1807. Ibid. 

2 "Memoir of Henry Clay," p. 41, in "Life and Speeches of Henry Clay," 
Anon., New York; Greeley and McElrath, Tribune Building, 1843, 2 vols. 
Text, "Palladium," December 22, 1808. 

3 Full text, Marshall, II, pp. 460-463; "Memoir of Henry Clay," p. 41. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF 1 8 12 319 

is, "to resume the practical exercise of those just rights of 
navigation and commerce, which have been suspended . . . 
and to defend them with all the energies of a people de- 
termined to be free and independent." 

Both series of resolutions advocated "a bold and manly 
resistance" to all foreign aggressions,^ but those of Mar- 
shall reflected upon Jefferson, who was still the idol of the 
Kentucky pioneers, and so were doomed to an ignominious 
defeat. When the votes were finally taken, only one was 
registered in favor of them, and that was the vote of Mr. 
Marshall himself.^ Clay's resolutions then passed, "all 
the members present voting in the aflSrmative, except Mr. 
Marshall," as the next issue of the local papers gleefully 
assures us.^ 

But the conflict was not yet at an end. Clay and 
Marshall continued to discuss the merits of their respec- 
tive positions. Federalism against Republicanism, and the 
language, upon both sides, became more and more abusive, 
until the inevitable demand was made, for "the satisfaction 
known among gentlemen." 

The newspapers of a few weeks later give us full details 
of the encounter. 

"On Thursday morning last," says the "Palladium" 
of January 26, 1809, "a duel was fought in the Indiana 
Territory, near the mouth of Silver creek, by Henry Clay 
and Humphrey Marshall, Esq. . . ." '* 

1 Mr. Marshall's words were slightly different, but their meaning was identi- 
cal: To defend our national rights "with all the energies of a people determined 
to be free and independent." 

2 Marshall, II, p. 462. 

3 "Palladium," December 22, 1808. The vote was 64 to i in favor of Mr. 
Clay's Resolutions. 

* The encounter took place, therefore, on January 19, 1809. See Collins, I, 
p. 26. 



320 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

"The following correspondence and statement relative 
to this affair have been handed to us for publication. 

"January 4, 1809. 
"Sir: After the occurrences in the house of Representa- 
tives on this day, the receipt of this note will excite with 
you no surprise. I hope on my part I shall not be disap- 
pointed in the execution of the pledge you gave on that 
occasion, and in your disclaimer of the character attributed 
to you. To enable you to fulfil these reasonable and just 
expectations, my friend, Major Campbell, is authorized 
by me to adjust the ceremonies proper to be observed. 

" I am, Sir, Yours etc., 
" Henry Clay." 

"January 4, 1809. 

"Sir: Your note of this date was handed me by Major 
Campbell — the object is understood, and without deigning 
to notice the insinuation it contains as to character, the 
necessary arrangements are, on my part, submitted to 
my friend, Colonel Moore. 

" Yours, Sir, etc., 
" H. Marshall. 

"Rules to be observed by Mr. Clay and Mr. Marshall 
on the ground, in settling the affair now pending between 
them. 

"i. Each gentleman will take his station at ten paces 
distance from the other, and will stand as may suit his 
choice, with his arms hanging down and after the words, 
Attention! Fire! being given, both may fire at their leisure. 

"2. A snap or flash shall be equivalent to a fire. 

"3. If one should fire before the other, he who fires first 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF 1 8 12 32 1 

shall stand in the position in which he was when he fired, 
except that he may let his arm fall down by his side. 

" 4. A violation of the above rules by either of the parties 
(accidents excepted) shall subject the offender to instant 
death." 

"John B. Campbell. 
"James F. Moore. 

"Conformably to previous arrangement, Mr. Clay and 
Mr. Marshall, attended by their friends, crossed the Ohio 
at Shippingport, and, an eligible spot of ground present- 
ing itself immediately below the mouth of Silver creek, 
ten steps, the distance agreed on, was measured off, and 
each gentleman took his position. The word being given, 
both gentlemen fired: Mr. Marshall's fire did not take 
effect. Mr. Clay succeeded as far as to give Mr. Marshall 
a slight wound on the belly. Preparations were then made 
for a second fire: Mr. Marshall again fired without effect. 
Mr. Clay snapped, which, agreeably to rules agreed on, 
was equivalent to a fire. A third preparation was made, 
when each gentleman stood at his station waiting for the 
word: Mr. Marshall fired first, and gave Mr. Clay a flesh 
wound in the right thigh — Mr. Clay fired without effect. 
Mr. Clay insisted on another fire, very ardently; but his 
situation, resulting from his wound, placing him on un- 
equal grounds, his importunate request was not complied 
with. 

"We deem it justice to both gentlemen to pronounce 
their conduct on the occasion, cool, determined, and brave, 
in the highest degree. 

"Mr. Clay's friend was under an impression that Mr. 
Marshall, at the third fire, violated a rule which required 

Kentucky — 21 



^ 



322 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

that he who fired first should stand in the position in 
which he was when he fired; but Mr. Marshall's friend 
being convinced that Mr. Clay had fired previous to Mr. 
Marshall's moving from his position — this circumstance 
is considered as one in which gentlemen may be mistaken 
on such occasions, and is not to be noticed in this afFair. 

"John B. Campbell. 
"James F. Moore. 
"Thursday Jan. 19, 1809."^ 

About six weeks after this duel, the author of the 
Declaration of Independence retired from the Presidency, 
conscious of the fact that all his political ingenuity had 
failed to maintain the independence of his country. He 
saw, as no clear-sighted man of the day could have failed 
to see, that diplomacy and peaceful negotiations had ex- 
hausted their resources, and that the nation stood face to 
face with actual war with either England or France, and 
'^^ perhaps with both.^ 

On March 4, 1809, James Madison took the oath of 
office, and began his hopeless attempt to steer the nation 
out of the current of European war. Like his great prede- 
cessor, Madison was a man of peace. His disposition and 
peculiar abilities had enabled him to play a leading part in 
constructive statesmanship, but he was sadly lacking in the 
elements of character necessary for meeting a crisis such 
as now confronted the country, and he lacked also that 

1 The Legislature, in December session, 1811, passed an act more effectually 
to suppress the practice of duelling. "The Reporter," Lexington, February 15, 
1812. 

2 "Our situation," said Jefferson, "is truly difficult. We have been pressed 
by the belligerents to the very vsrall, and further retreat is impracticable." Curtis' 
"True Thomas Jefferson," p. 172. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF l8l2 323 

strong hold upon party loyalty which had characterized 
Thomas Jefferson. The immediate result was a period 
of uncertainty, weakness and consequent business disturb- 
ance which was poorly calculated to prepare the nation 
for war with England. 

Jefferson, during the last days of his administration, 
had declined to take any part in the initiation of new 
policies; ^ and Madison, therefore, as soon as his election 
was assured, had let it be known that he favored the im- 
mediate lifting of the embargo, and the substitution of 
a policy of non-intercourse with the belligerent powers of 
Europe. Congress had at once passed a law embodying 
this change, and it had gone into operation the day 
that Madison took the oath of office.^ Its immediate 
effect was a temporary return of prosperity. American 
shipowners began to realize enormous gains, not only by 
taking advantage of such legitimate trade as the law left 
open, but also by turning to their own profit certain less 
reputable openings, which the French or the British Gov- 
ernments made for them.^ Moreover, Mr. Erskine, the 
new British Minister, now appeared at Washington, and 
promptly concluded a treaty obliging Great Britain to 
withdraw her orders in council, by June 10, 1809, and 
to respect our neutral trade, upon condition that non- 
intercourse with England should be withdrawn. Upon 
the basis of this amicable settlement, Madison issued a 
proclamation informing his delighted fellow-citizens that, 
after June 10, they would be free again to trade with 
every port, which was not subject to the French flag. 

1 Curtis's "True Thomas JeflFerson," p. 172. 

2 Text of Bill, Macdonald's "Documentary Source Book," No. 67. 

3 Charming, p. 329. 



324 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

For a few brief weeks after the appearance of this proc- 
lamation, Madison was the idol of both parties. He had 
broken the meshes of the net in which the nation had 
seen herself being dragged into a European war. He 
had secured with ease concessions which Jefferson had 
failed to secure. He had dissolved, magician that he was, 
the black war cloud which had threatened the young re- 
public. He had himself assured Congress, in a joyous 
message, that there would be no war, and the nation 
might safely trust his knowledge upon this subject. Thus 
spoke the oratory of the day; but such rejoicings were 
speedily cut short by the news that England had disa- 
vowed Erskine's promises, and declined to ratify his treaty; 
and Madison saw himself an Ichabod, whose glory had 
departed from him. 

The failure of the Erskine treaty brought no distress to 
the Kentucky people. To them a war with England 
meant an opportunity to capture Canada, and to put 
an end to the British intrigues with the Indians, which 
they believed to have been responsible for most of the 
border warfare from which they had so long suffered. 
They therefore regarded, with ill-concealed disapproval, the 
flabby policy contained in the famous Macon Bill, No. 2,^ 
which provided for the immediate repeal of the non- 
intercourse act, and authorized President Madison, in 
case either France or England should " cease to violate the 
neutral commerce of the United States," to revive non- 
intercourse with the other, if she refused to follow the 
same course. 

The desire of Kentucky to invade Canada was ex- 
pressed by Henry Clay, early in February, 18 10, in the 

1 Adams's "Gallatin," p. 416. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF 1 8 12 325 

following words: ^ "The conquest of Canada is in your 
power: I trust I shall not be deemed presumptuous when 
I state that I verily believe that the militia of Kentucky 
are alone competent to place Montreal and upper Can- 
ada at your feet. Is it nothing to the British nation; is 
it nothing to the pride of her monarch, to have the last 
of the immense North American possessions, held by him 
in the commencement of his reign, wrested from his do- 
minions ? Is it nothing to us to extinguish the torch that 
lights up savage warfare ? " 

It was with this idea in mind that Mr. Clay assumed the 
duties of Speaker of the Twelfth Congress," a post to 
which he was chosen as the avowed champion of the war 
policy. He was not yet thirty-five years old,^ but his 
youthfulness by no means argued lack of experience in the 
management of public affairs. For eight years he had 
been a prominent figure in the lower house of the Ken- 
tucky Legislature, and, upon two occasions, had fiiUed 
temporary vacancies in the United States Senate,^ where 
he had attracted general attention by speeches advocating 
internal improvements at national cost, and a system of 
national protection for articles of American growth and 

1 Babcock, " American Nation Series," XIII, p. 85. 

2 Clay was chosen Speaker on the first ballot, November 4, 181 1, by a vote 
of 75 against 38 for Bibb of Georgia, the so-called "peace candidate." Niles, I, 
p. 153; Clay's "Memoir," p. 51. 

3 Henry Clay -was born in Hanover County, Virginia, on April 12, 1777. 

* In 1803 Henry Clay had been chosen to represent Fayette County in the 
lower house of the Kentucky Legislature, and had been regularly returned at 
each election until 1806. In that year he had been chosen to fill out the un- 
expired term of General Adair, one of Kentucky's United States Senators. At 
the close of the session of the Senate, where he had made a considerable reputa- 
tion as a debater, Clay had returned to his position as the representative of 
Fayette County in the Kentucky Legislature, where he continued to serve until 
1809, when he was again sent to the United States Senate, this time to fill a 



326 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

manufacture.^ He entered Congress, therefore, not as an 
unknown representative from the West, as we are some- 
times led to beheve, but as a man whose abiHty for lead- 
ership had already been tested. 

The new House of Representatives, over which Clay 
was called to preside at this critical period, was com- 
posed largely of men whose influence in national affairs as 
yet lay in the future. Of the one hundred and forty-two 
representatives, seventy were just beginning their careers, 
and they chose Mr. Clay, Speaker, more for what his past 
seemed to promise, than for anything which he had actually 
accomplished. 

"From the moment," writes Schouler, that "this tall, 
slender, son of Kentucky, with long brown hair, blue eyes, 
large mouth, peaked nose, and shaven face, mounted the 
steps and took the gavel into his hand . . . the House 
[had] the popular leader which two Presidents had sought 
in vain; and the country a foreign policy, the most spirited, 
if not the wisest." ^ Mr. Madison might hesitate and 
urge new peace measures, but such a house, with such a 
Speaker, could not long be kept quiet, and, under the in- 
fluence of the policy of Macon's Bill No. 2, matters had 
already reached a point where it required no Pericles to 
see that a war was brewing. 

In the provisions of that bill. Napoleon had seen his 

vacancy caused by the resignation of Mr. Thurston. At his retirement from this 
post of honor, where his abilities as an orator and debater won him distinction, 
Clay was elected to represent the Fayette District of Kentucky in the national 
House of Representatives. His choice as Speaker of the Twelfth Congress was 
a signal tribute to the capacity for leadership which he had shown in each of 
these positions. Collins, II, pp. 208-209, ^^c. 

1 He had also taken a prominent part in the destruction of the national 
bank. Carl Schurz, "Henry Clay," I, p. 64. 

2 Schouler, II, p. 338. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF l8l2 327 

opportunity to embroil the United States in a war with 
his great antagonist, and, with characteristic disregard of 
truth, had notified Mr. Madison that his decrees against 
American shipping had been revoked, and would cease 
to have any effect, after the first day of November, 1810.^ 
This meant, of course, that, if England should decline 
to take a similar step, non-intercourse must be revived 
against her. 

With a faith in the sincerity of Napoleon's declaration 
which, to men of our own generation, seems almost in- 
credible, Madison had confidently awaited a similar as- 
surance from England. But Great Britain, too honest to 
resort to Napoleon's unworthy tactics, and too independent 
to make the concessions demanded, had remained unre- 
sponsive, apparently indifferent to the danger of renewed 
non-intercourse. At last Madison, confident in the 
strength of his peaceful weapon, had issued a proclama- 
tion,^ declaring that, on February 2d, 181 1, intercourse 
with England and her dependencies would cease, and 
would remain suspended until she should repeal her ob- 
noxious orders. Even this declaration had failed to bring 
England to terms, and, as the spring, summer and au- 
tumn of 181 1 had passed, there had been no sign of re- 
lenting by the British Government. 

Meanwhile it had become evident that the actions of 
France comported ill with the assurances given by her 
Emperor. American ships were still being captured and 
condemned. New decrees had been issued; the revoked 
decrees themselves were still acted upon; and Madison 

1 Wilson's "History of the American People," III, p. 206. 

2 Proclamation of November 2, 1810. Text, Amer. State Papers, Second 
Edition, VIII, pp. 11-13. 



328 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

saw the nation dragged nearer and nearer to war, by means 
of the very program which had been designed to maintain 
peace. At the time when Clay took up the duties of 
Speaker it seemed only a question of whom we should fight. 

France had given pledges, pledges indeed which she had 
made little pretence of keeping, but it seemed somewhat 
compatible with national dignity to act as though we still 
credited them. England, on the other hand, had held 
out nothing that could possibly be seized upon as an olive 
branch. To fight England, and disregard the ill-concealed 
insults from France, seemed, therefore, the most bearable 
course, for no one deemed it possible to declare war 
against both the belligerents at once. 

In the mind of the young Speaker of the House and the 
band of new men who eagerly followed his lead, there 
lurked also the ancient grievance of the West, the British 
proneness to incite Indian border warfare. The bellige- 
rent powers were striking, with almost equal disregard 
of neutral rights, at the commerce of the Coast States: 
but England alone stood accused of tampering with the 
Western tribes; and, to the people of the new West, this 
was the great question of the hour. The impressment of 
American seamen, they resented as an act insulting to 
their nation; the capture of American trading vessels, they 
regarded as "piracy"; but the inciting of savages VN^as war. 
And, even as Mr. Clay took up his Speaker's gavel, he knew 
that his fellow Kentuckians were taking up the musket, and 
marching to join an army which Governor William Henry 
Harrison of the Indiana Territory was to lead against 
the great Indian confederation of the twin brethren, Te- 
cumseh and "The Prophet; " and, before the debate con- 
cerning the questions of foreign complications was con- 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF l8l2 329 

eluded, Mr. Clay received news^ of the success of this 
expedition. 

On November 7, the Kentucky volunteers and a regi- 
ment of regulars from Pittsburg, led by Governor Harri- 
son, had crushed the savage allies at Tippecanoe; ^ and 
had found, what they considered abundant proof, that the 
British authorities of Canada had put arms into the hands 
of the Indian chiefs when the war broke out; while Har- 
rison himself, in a letter of December 2, 1811,^ thus 
charges England with being directly responsible for the 
Indian uprising: 

"Within the last three months the whole of the Indians 
on this frontier have been completely armed and equipped 
out of the King's stores at Maiden. . . . The Indians 
had, moreover, an ample supply of the best British glazed 
powder — some of their guns had been sent to them so 
short a time before the action, that they were not divested 
of the list covering in which they are imported." 

It has been frequently insisted that the facts do not 
sustain this serious charge against the British authorities. 
Humphrey Marshall unhesitatingly repudiates the idea, 
declaring that Governor Harrison represented "the In- 
dians as acting under British influence," in order "to jus- 
tify himself for beginning the war." ^ But, true or false, 

1 The news of the battle of Tippecanoe reached Washington early in Decem- 
ber, 181 1. See Schouler, II, p. 335. Full details of battle, see No. 15 of " Filson 
Club Publications," "The Battle of Tippecanoe," by Capt. Alfred Pirtle. The 
second part reprints a number of valuable documents bearing upon Ken- 
tucky's part in this victory. 

2 Marshall, II, pp. 494-506, for text of Harrison's official account of the 
battle of Tippecanoe, dated Vincennes, November 18, 181 1. 

'Harrison to Col. John M. Scott, of Frankfort, Ky. Niles, I, 311-312. 

< Marshall, II, p. 491. Foster, in his correspondence of January, 1812, 
denies the imputation, prior to 1811, but his denial as to more recent dates is 
only half-hearted. Schouler, II, p. 342, note. 



330 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

the charge was made and believed, and it seriously affected 
the attitude of the West toward England, at this critical 
moment.^ 

Determined upon war with England before the arrival 
of this news, Clay found himself greatly strengthened 
and encouraged by it. The committees, which he had ap- 
pointed, poured their war recommendations into Congress 
in a ceaseless stream. The opposition was powerless. 
Randolph declared the charge of British tampering with 
the Indians quite unproven. "Show but good ground for 
it [i. e. this charge]," he said, "and I will give up the 
question and am ready to march to Canada." ^ To Clay 
and his allies, however, it had been sufficiently proved, 
and they were already prepared to start the march. Ran- 
dolph might exhaust his satirical genius in questioning 
the facts; Madison might hesitate and plead for time; 
mass meetings in Boston and New York might rail at 
"the madmen of Kentucky and Virginia;" ^ but Henry 
Clay, and his impetuous young associates, were at the 
helm of State, and could not be restrained by words 
of caution.^ And so war preparations continued, and 
daily it became more evident that Kentucky was soon' 
to be given the long-coveted opportunity of invading 
Canada. 

In his message of June i, 1812, Mr. Madison made his 
surrender to the war party, suggesting more complete prep- 

1 Niles, II, pp. 342-344, prints extensive correspondence from Harrison, 
Hull, General William Clark, John Johnson and various other men of promi- 
nence in the Indian country, which gives great weight to the charge against the 
British. 

3 "Annals of Congress," Thursday, December 10, 1811; Niles, I, Supplemen- 
tary to No. 17, I, p. 317. 

3 Schouler, II, p. 351. 

4 Sargent's "Clay," pp. 13-14. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF i8l2 33 1 

arations for "opposing force to force in defence of . . . 
national rights," and including among the Hst of grievances 
against Great Britain, the Indian disturbances of the 
Northwest. The Federahst party always claimed that this 
message had been forced from the peace-loving Madison, 
by a committee of Congress, with Clay as its chairman, 
who had threatened to prevent his renomination should he 
refuse to recommend a declaration of war. To save his 
political head, they declared, he consented; and was re- 
warded by the nomination on May 18, his message follow- 
ing on June i. The charge was made openly in Congress, 
and James Fiske, a Vermont member, is said to have de- 
clared that he was one of the committee; but Mr. Clay and 
his friends positively denied the story. ^ The truth seems to 
be, from certain documents quoted by Mr. Adams, in his 
life of Albert Gallatin, that Madison, while willing to sign 
a bill declaring war, was unwilling to take the responsi- 
bility of recommending it. He really wished to send Mr. 
Bayard to England, to make one more effort for a peaceful 
settlement; but Clay and a committee called upon him, 
and informed him that such a step would lose him the 
support of the war party in the coming caucus. "This," 
says Mr. Adams, "is all that can be now affirmed in re- 
gard to the celebrated charge, that Mr. Madison made war 
in order to obtain a re-election." ^ 

Congress eagerly complied with the recommendation of 
the President, and, three days later, passed a declaration of 

1 Adams's "Gallatin," pp. 456 et seq., for examination of story. Also 
Schouler, II, p. 349, note. 

2 John J. Crittenden, in his commemoration address upon Henry Clay, 
declares that this committee merely assured the President that a majority of 
Congress stood ready "to vote the war if recommended by him." Text, Cole- 
man's "Crittenden," I, pp. 39-57. 



332 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

war.^ The Senate held the measure twelve days in sus- 
pense, Mr. Pope, one of the Kentucky senators, exerting 
all his energy to defeat it; but it finally passed ^ and, on 
June 1 8, President Madison affixed his signature. War 
with Great Britain had come at last. 

The news reached Kentucky toward the end of June, 
and the "Lexington Reporter," of July i, thus describes 
its reception: 

"News of a declaration of war arrived in this place on 
Friday last, when there was a firing of cannon and muske- 
try commenced, and kept up until late in the evening. 
The same thing, we understand, took place at Frankfort. 
In this town, Winchester, Richmond, and Nicholasville, 
the houses were illuminated — and most decided evidence 
of approbation of the measure, was everywhere manifested. 

"In the moment of joy, when the citizens saw their 
country, a second time declared independent — it is re- 
ported that at Nicholasville and Mount Sterling, Mr. Pope, 
our Senator, who opposed the war was burnt in effigy." 

Celebrations and impassioned orations were the order 
of the day throughout the Commonwealth. The unjust 
actions of Great Britain, and France were the themes of 
patriotic addresses,^ and the common opinion was ex- 
pressed by an enthusiastic meeting at Lexington, which 

1 Schurz's " Clay," I, p. 85. In the meantime Lord Brougham had pre- 
sented to the House of Commons a resolution, calling for the unconditional re- 
peal of the Orders in Council; but the fact was of course unknown in America. 
The ministry grudgingly consented to the motion, and, on June 23, four days 
after Madison's proclamation of war, the repeal of the orders was accomplished. 
Babcock's "American Nation Series," XIII, p. 75. 

2 Young's "Battle of the Thames," pp. 7-8, gives the vote by States; Ibid., 
p. 188, for vote of Kentucky. 

3 The "Lexington Reporter," of July 13, 181 2, gives almost the whole issue 
to descriptions of pro-war celebrations in Kentucky. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF 1 8 12 333 

sent the President a series of resolutions declaring, among 
other things, that, "those who have temporised, or op- 
posed the declaration of war, are unworthy the confidence 
of freemen," and "... those who will not aid our gov- 
ernment in this our second struggle for independence, are 
enemies of their country." 

But enthusiasm soon received a most unexpected shock. 
A few weeks before the declaration of war. Governor 
Scott had issued a call ^ for fifteen hundred Kentucky 
volunteers, who were to join the army which General Hull 
was gathering at Detroit. They had started for the front, 
and had reached Georgetown, when news came that Gen- 
eral Hull had "thrown out the white flag from his fort at 
Detroit, and surrendered all his forces, and the strong- 
hold itself, to the allied Brock and Tecumseh; and this 
without having fired a gun, or consulted one of his sub- 
ordinates." ^ 

*'This news," says M'Clung,^ "was received with a 
burst of indignant fury, which no other event has ever ex- 
cited in Kentucky." For months afterwards, the Ken- 
tucky papers were filled with fierce denunciations of Hull, 
to whose "imbecility, cowardice, or treachery" ^ the fail- 
ure of their first expedition was attributed. Mr. Madison 



1 "Lexington Reporter," May 9, 1812, for full text of the call. The Gov- 
ernor, at the same time, organized ten regiments, amounting to 5,500 troops, 
as Kentucky's quota of the 100,000 militia called for by the United States. 
It is said that Madison proposed making Clay general of the forces in the 
field, but that Gallatin discouraged the idea, saying: "But what shall we do 
without Clay in Congress." Schurz's "Clay," I, p. 88. 

2 Schouler, II, p. 358. In 1814 Hull was tried at a court-martial at Albany, 
found guilty of cowardice, neglect of duty and unofficerlike conduct, and his 
name was stricken from the rolls of the army. Ibid. 

3 "Outline History of Kentucky," Collins, I, p. 298. 
< "Lexington Reporter," September 26, 1812. 



334 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

also received his meed of censure for keeping in office, 
and in positions of military authority, men totally unfitted 
for organizing or leading military campaigns.- Samuel 
Brown expressed the feeling of his district when he wrote, 
"I look for nothing but defeat until our old, nominal 
generals are out of the way, and young, active, enterpris- 
ing men placed at the head of well appointed armies. 
Eustis ^ must go out, and Madison is only fit for negotia- 
tion. If we must have war we must have energy in our 
President, and that we know Madison has not nor ever 
will have. . . ." ^ 

The Kentucky people realized, of course, that they could 
do little towards effecting these changes; but their volun- 
teers were on the way to the front, and it was an im- 
portant question as to who should command them. Hull, 
they properly insisted, had forfeited the right, having 
"traitorously sold our army and Detroit to the British," ^ 
and they indicated General Harrison, as the man who 
would best satisfy the West.^ President Madison hesi- 
tated, and the Kentucky leaders promptly acted for them- 
selves. At a caucus, called by Governor Scott, and com- 
posed of ex-Governor Shelby, Henry Clay, ex-Governor 
Greenup, Thomas Todd, and other distinguished Ken- 
tuckians,^ it was decided, "to give Harrison a brevet com- 
mission of Major General in the militia of Kentucky, and 
authorize him to take command of the detachment now 

1 Secretary of War, William Eustis, himself confirmed this verdict, about 
ten weeks later (December 3, 181 2), by sending in his resignation, which took 
effect on the thirty-first of the same month. 

2 Brown-Preston MSS., " S. Brown to John Brown," Natchez, Septem- 
ber 20, 181 2. 

3 "Lexington Reporter," September 5, 1812. 

4 Schouler, II, p. 358; Marshall, II, p. 458. 

* Butler, p. 345; Young's "Battle of the Thames," p. 16. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF 1 8 12 335 

marching to Detroit." ^ This decision was extraordinary, 
in view of the fact that General Harrison was not a Ken- 
tuckian; but the Governor and his advisers knew the hold 
which he had upon the hearts of the Kentuckians, and 
their confidence in the appointment was shown by their 
decision to, "increase the detachment ... to be sent to 
the relief of Hull, to three thousand." ^ 

These arrangements were concluded at the end of Gover- 
nor Scott's term of office, and one of the first public duties 
of his successor, Isaac Shelby, was to receive General 
Harrison's formal acceptance of the flattering appoint- 
ment. He then informed President Madison of what had 
been done, declaring that the commission was provisional, 
and subject to the will of the nation's chief executive. 

What Mr. Madison thought of this somewhat progressive 
attitude of the Pioneer Commonwealth, we do not know. 
He had already selected General Winchester of Tennessee, 
as commander of the Western army, and Winchester had 
taken command at Fort Wayne, on September 19, 1812.^ 
But, whatever his own feelings may have been, he wisely 
decided to yield to the desire of the Kentuckians, upon 
whose support the strength of the army of the West must 
largely depend, and, having countermanded his first 
orders, he assigned the command to General Harrison.'* 

There could be no doubt of the popularity of this ap- 
pointment. Hundreds of mounted volunteers from dif- 

1 Text of orders issued in accordance with this decision, printed in "Lexing- 
ton Reporter," August 29, 181 2. 

2 On August 29, 1812, Harrison wrote to Henry Clay, "No such material 
for forming an invincible army ever existed as the volunteers which have marched 
from Kentucky on the present occasion." Colton's "Private Correspondence 
of Henry Clay," p. 21. 

3 "Lexington Reporter," October 3, 1812. 

* Colton's "Private Correspondence of Henry Clay," pp. 20, 22. 



336 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

ferent parts of Kentucky hastened to join Harrison's 
army,^ and the papers boasted that, if occasion should de- 
mand their services, "there would be scarcely a male in- 
habitant left in the State capable of bearing arms," 

In the general plan of campaign,^ which Dearborn, the 
senior Major General of the American armies, had pre- 
sented to the War Department before the opening of hos- 
tilities, the first step had been to capture Fort Maiden 
and Fort Amherstburg. This, it was felt, would open up 
an easy route to Montreal and Quebec, and facilitate the 
contemplated peaceful conquest of Canada, the acquisi- 
tion of which, wrote Jefferson,^ "will be a mere matter 
of marching." Hull's surrender had, however, vastly in- 
creased the task of the Western army, for General Harri- 
son, before conquering upper Canada, must now recapture 
Detroit, and humble the tribes of the Northwest. 

To the Secretary of War, (William Eustis of Massachu- 
setts), this seemed an easy undertaking and so, perhaps, it 
might have proved, had Harrison been provided with 
trained troops, and an effective commissary department. 
As things stood, however, with the enemy in full possession 
of the lakes, with a wilderness of savage-infested swamps 
and marshes to be traversed, with an undisciplined army of 
recruits, to be maintained by a poorly organized commis- 

1 The detachment, from the quota of the Kentucky militia, had been raised 
to about 4,000 by Governor Shelby, and General Harrison had been further 
authorized to raise 500 mounted volunteers. These, with the detachment from 
Indiana, raised his available force to some 6,000 men. "Lexington Reporter," 
August 29, 18 1 2. The administration, when appointing General Harrison, had 
promised him an army of 10,000 men; but not over 6,000 were actually in serv- 
ice at any one time. Butler, p. 352; Smith, p. 470. 

2 Babcock, p. 86, for details in brief. 

3 "Jefferson to Wm. Duane," Monticello, August 4, 1812. Text, Jefferson's 
Works, Memorial Ed., XIII, pp. 180-182. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF 1 8 12 337 

sariat, disasters were to be expected, in spite of the ample 
ability of the leader, and the eager courage of his followers. 
Had the importance of gaining the command of Lake Erie 
been realized at the beginning, and had the money, which 
was thrown away upon this unfortunate expedition, been 
used to secure that command, prior to the opening of the 
land operations in the Northwest, our history would not 
have to record the horrors of the River Raisin. 

On January i, 1813, General Winchester's division, com- 
posed of the Kentucky volunteers of Lieutenant Colonels 
Lewis and Allen, with a small body of regulars, reached 
Fort Defiance; and, on January 10,^ they established 
themselves at the Rapids of the Maumee,^ to await the 
arrival of General Harrison. Their long and difficult 
march had greatly disheartened them. They had entered 
the service in August, and it was now almost the middle of 
January; during all which months, they had been march- 
ing, to no purpose, so far as they could see. They had 
burned a few Indian villages; waded through miles of 
swamp; ^ fought a losing battle against hunger, disease 
and privation; and now found themselves encamped in a 
frozen wilderness, with orders to await in patience the 
arrival of another band of their fellow Kentuckians, who 
were, even then, suffering the horrors, which they them- 
selves had passed through. In one month, their term of 
enlistment would end, and they would again traverse the 
wilderness, and return to Kentucky, there to be pointed 
out as the soldiers who had never seen an enemy. 

To this encampment, on January 14, came the news 

1 Collins, I, p. 300. 

2 The general rendezvous for all the troops of General Harrison's army. 
Butler, 353. 

3 Shaler, p. 160. 

Kentucky — 22 



33 B KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

that two companies of Canadian militia, and two hundred 
Indians, were quartered at Frenchtown on the River Rai- 
sin, only thirty-eight miles away, and that the inhabitants 
had sent an appeal for help, fearing a massacre by the 
savage allies of the British.^ The troops demanded per- 
mission to advance, and General Winchester gave his con- 
sent. Five hundred and fifty Kentucky volunteers under 
Colonel Lewis ^ were detailed for the expedition, and, a few 
hours later. Colonel John Allen followed, with one hundred 
and ten more. The two detachments spent the night 
of January 17 at Presque Isle, and, early next morning, 
marched upon Frenchtown. A large body of Indians 
soon disputed their advance, but were quickly routed. 
Frenchtown was attacked and taken, the assailants gal- 
lantly supporting "the double character of the American 
and the Kentuckian," as the commanding general declared 
in his report of the battle.^ 

This success would have done much to hearten the 
army, had Winchester possessed the wisdom to reap the 
full benefit of the victory. With a strong British garrison 
at Maiden,^ only eighteen miles distant, with a fast frozen 
lake forming an easy highway for them, and with Gen- 
eral Harrison, and his wing of the army, too far away to 
serve as reinforcements, it was the height of folly to at- 
tempt to hold Frenchtown. And yet Winchester, upon 
receiving the report of its capture, took two hundred and 
fifty regulars, under the command of Colonel Wells, and 
hastened forward, leaving General Payne, with three 

1 Bartlett's "History of the United States," III, p. 64. 

2 Young's "Battle of the Thames," p. 17. 

3 Ibid., p. 18. 

* About 2,000 British and Indians under Colonel Proctor were in camp at 
Maiden. Babcock, p. 98. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF 1812 339 

hundred Kentucky volunteers/ to guard his camp at the 
Rapids, and await the arrival of General Harrison. In 
the evening of January 20, he entered Frenchtown, and 
found Colonel Lewis' victorious troops proudly estab- 
lished within the strong palisade.^ 

And now was shown Kentucky's wisdom in demanding 
Harrison, instead of Winchester, as commander-in-chief of 
the Western army. Instead of massing all his men within 
the picketing, the latter, out of a foolish regard for a tra- 
dition that regulars should enjoy the post of honor on the 
right, encamped Colonel Wells' regulars in an open space, 
to the right of the palisade.^ He then established his own 
quarters in a farmhouse, almost a mile distant,'* having 
"named," to Colonel Wells, "but not positively ordered, 
a breastwork for the protection of his camp." ^ The next 
day, all being quiet. Wells asked leave to return to the 
Rapids, and General Winchester, in strange disregard of 
the danger of his position, allowed him to depart. 

A few hours later, a Frenchman came into camp, and in- 
formed General Winchester that a large force of British 
and Indians had left Maiden, with the evident intention of 
recapturing the fort. "The news," says M'Afee,'' "must 
have been discredited alike by the officers and men, for 
no preparations were made by the one, nor apprehensions 
exhibited by the other. The most fatal security prevailed — 
many of the troops even wandered about the town till 

1 Collins, I, p. 301. 

2 Bartlett, III, p. 65. 

3 Shaler, p. 161. 

4 Article in "Louisville Daily Herald and Commercial Gazette," Septem- 
beri7, 1833. 

5 Bartlett's "United States," III, p. 65. 

6 M'Afee's "History of the Late War in the Western Country," p. 212. 



340 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

late in the night. Colonel Lewis and Major Madison, 
alone, seemed to be on the alert; they cautioned their men 
to be prepared at all times for an attack." General 
Winchester further neglected to post pickets upon the 
road by which the enemy would be most likely to come. 

The night passed without alarm, but, at daybreak, 
January 22, while the reveille was beating, three guns 
were heard in rapid succession, followed by a heavy dis- 
charge of artillery, firing grape and small bullets.^ Colonel 
Proctor had made his night march from Fort Maiden, 
and was advancing to battle, at the head of two thousand 
British regulars, Indians and Canadians.^ 

In spite of the suddenness of the assault, Lewis' Ken- 
tucky volunteers, lodged within the palisade, repulsed the 
first attack made upon them, but the regulars, encamped in 
the open, were instantly thrown into a panic. Not having 
presence of mind to take refuge within the palisade, they 
fled, in wild confusion, down the path leading to the Rapids. 
The savages pursued them, slaughtering without mercy. 
Colonels Lewis and Allen gallantly left the comparative 
shelter of the palisade, and, with two companies of Ken- 
tucky volunteers,^ endeavored to stay the panic, but with- 
out effect. Their heroism but added new victims for the 
slaughter. Colonel Allen, although severely wounded in 
the thigh, continued to cheer on his men, and when at- 
tacked by two Indian warriors at once, had succeeded in 
cutting down one of them, when a shot, from the rifle of a 
third, put an end to his heroic struggle.'* Colonel Lewis 
was speedily overpowered and made prisoner, and General 

1 Young's, "Battle of the Thames," p. 20. 

2 Collins, I, p. 301. 

3 "Lexington Reporter," March 13, 1813. 
* Young's "Battle of the Thames," p. 21. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF 1812 34 1 

Winchester, who had arrived from his distant quarters, 
was captured, while frantically appealing to his regulars 
to stand and give battle. 

All who had ventured outside the shelter of the palisade 
were lost; ^ but the most of the Kentucky volunteers, hav- 
ing been held within those feeble defences, were still un- 
conquered and defiant. Again and again Colonel Proctor 
tried to dislodge them. He posted a six-pounder some 
two hundred yards from the enclosure, knowing that the 
palisades would be a poor defence against artillery; but the 
Kentucky riflemen within shot the horse which was to 
convey the necessary ammunition, and the gun remained 
silent. 

Upon learning that General Winchester had been cap- 
tured. Colonel Proctor decided, "to procure the surrender 
of the party in the picketing," by means of their own gen- 
eral, and, accordingly, gave a pledge to Winchester that, "if 
the remainder of the Americans would immediately sur- 
render, they should be protected from massacre; but other- 
wise he would set fire to the village, and would not be 
responsible for the conduct of the savages." ^ General 
Winchester thereupon sent an order to Major Madison, 
whom the casualties of the day had left in command, di- 
recting surrender. Major Madison's reply was that 
Winchester, being now a prisoner, had no longer the right 
to command the Kentucky volunteers, and that his men 
preferred to take their chances of death in battle, rather 
than submit themselves to be massacred in cold blood by 
the savages.^ After some parley, Colonel Proctor agreed 

1 "Lexington Reporter," February 6, 1813. Official letters regarding en- 
gagement in the next number, February 13, 1813. 

2 Bartlett's "United States," III, p. 67; M'Afee, p. 215. 

3 M'Afee, pp. 215-216, gives what purport to be the words of Major Madison. 



342 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

to see that the sick and wounded were removed to Fort 
Maiden, and that the prisoners should be protected by a 
guard. ^ 

This is the view presented by M'Afee, and other Ameri- 
can historians who follow his account, but the British 
presentation of the case is quite different. The " General 
Orders," issued by the British commander-in-chief in 
Canada, declare that the Americans, "finding further re- 
sistance unavailing, . . . surrendered themselves at dis- 
cretion." ^ 

But, in any event, they surrendered them^selves into the 
hands of a British officer, who should have protected them 
to the full extent of his power. This Colonel Proctor 
certainly failed to do, and, for that failure, he merits all 
the abuse which Americans writers, for almost a century, 
have heaped upon his memory. The prisoners who were 
unhurt were properly guarded, and suffered no molesta- 
tion; but the wounded were carelessly, or maliciously, left 
in the camp at Frenchtown, V\^ith no protection save two 
American surgeons, one British officer, and a few inter- 
preters.^ The next morning, at dawn, two hundred sav- 
ages, mad with the excesses of the previous night's cele- 
bration, and paintej:! black and red in preparation for 
their contemplated " act of vengeance," ^ reentered French- 
town, and, with n<t hand to stay them, committed the bar- 
barous massacre which for years made "The Raisin," a 

1 Conditions of surrender summarized, Young's "Battle of the Thames," 
p. 24; Collins, I, p. 302, and II, p. 254; Smith, p. 473. 

2 Bartlett's "United States," III, p. 67; Collins, I, p. 302; and Shaler, p. 162, 
present the view that Proctor intended to keep the promise but was careless in 
the matter of guarding the wounded. 

3 M'Afee, p. 216; Collins, I, p. 302. 

* Young's "Battle of the Thames," p. 24; Smith, p. 473. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF 1 8 12 343 

name of horror In the western country. ^ Not one of the 
wounded prisoners was spared. Some were tomahawked, 
some burned at the stake, while others, feebly attempting 
to crawl to the shelter of the neighboring forests, were 
caught up and hurled back into the burning houses. ^ 

Christie, presenting the British view of this disgraceful 
occurrence, declares that the wounded prisoners were mas- 
sacred, "in spite of the British," ^ and the British faith in 
this view is shown by the fact that the official report of 
the commander-in-chief. General Brock, praises Proctor 
for, "his humane and unwearied exertions, which suc- 
ceeded in rescuing the vanquished, from the revenge of the 
Indian warriors." ^ 

Upon the very day that Winchester, with his little band 
of regulars, had reached the captured village of French- 
town, Harrison, with the right wing of the Western army, 
had arrived at the Rapids of the Maumee, where Gen- 
eral Payne had detailed to him the circumstances which 
had led to the capture of Frenchtown and Winchester's 
advance. Soon afterwards. Colonel Wells had arrived, 
with the information that all was now peaceful at the fort; 
but General Harrison was too experienced to be misled 
by such reports. With Maiden close at hand, and with 
the two wings of his own small army separated by forty 
miles of snow-clad wilderness, he had at once seen that 

1 The "Lexington Reporter," February 27, 1813, gives an account of the 
massacre, sworn to by an eyewitness of the outrage. A more extended account 
of Winchester's defeat is given in the same paper of March 13, 1813. Addi- 
tional details follow in succeeding numbers. 

2 Bartlett's "United States," III, p. 67. 

3 "The Military and Naval Operations in the Canadas during the late war 
with the United States," by Robt. Christie, Quebec, printed 1818, p. 100. 

4 Smith, p. 475. Upon the basis of this view of his conduct Colonel Proctor 
was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general. 



344 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

an attack upon one camp or the other was imminent. 
Sending to Kentucky a call for immediate reinforcements, 
he had, accordingly, begun the construction of Fort Meigs, 
on the Maumee, when news came of Winchester's defeat, 
and the massacre of the " River Raisin." 

With the entire left wing of his army gone, Harrison's 
condition was critical. Any day might witness, at Fort 
Meigs, scenes such as Frenchtown and the Raisin had just 
witnessed, while an added danger lay in the fact that a 
large portion of his volunteers, having completed the term 
of their enlistment, had declined to remain and face the 
dangers of an almost desperate position. ^ Had General 
Proctor availed himself of this moment of weakness, to 
follow up his success at Frenchtown by a sudden attack 
upon the unfinished defences of Fort Meigs, he might 
easily have freed the Northwest from the presence of 
American troops. But, for some unexplained reason, 
Harrison was allowed time to complete the fortifications,^ 
before the long expected attack was made. 

The gallant veteran. Governor Shelby, lost no time in 
dispatching reinforcements in response to Harrison's call. 
He enlisted four regiments (three thousand men), and 
placed them under the command of General Green Clay. 

The advanced guard of these Kentucky volunteers 
reached Fort Meigs on April 12, only a few days before 
a British flotilla, carrying cannon, and abundantly sup- 
plied with provisions for a siege, appeared at the mouth 
of the river. The British batteries were deliberately 
placed above and below Fort Meigs, and the troops care- 
fully posted, while Tecumseh, with a large force of savage 

1 Collins, I, p. 302. 

3 Ibid., I, p. 303, for description of the fort. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF 1 8 12 345 

warriors, guarded all ways of approach, with the view of 
preventing communication with the rest of the Kentucky 
reinforcements, which were known to be on the way. 

On May 4, this remaining detachment, under Gen- 
eral Clay, reached Fort Defiance, and Lieutenant David 
Trimble accomplished the dangerous feat of entering the 
beleaguered fort to inform General Harrison of their 
presence.^ The latter at once directed Clay to send eight 
hundred of his men to the north shore of the Maumee 
River, with orders to capture the enemies' batteries located 
at that point, spike the cannon, and then recross to 
Fort Meigs; ^ while Clay himself, with the rest of his men, 
was to fight his way into the fort, along the southern shore. 

"General Clay," writes his son, Cassius M. Clay, ^ 
"instead of going directly to the fort, where he must nec- 
essarily have lost much of his force from Indian sharp- 
shooters, . . . landed above, built . . . flat-boats, with 
high side-planks, which were bullet-proof, and thus drift- 
ing down the river, entered Fort Meigs with the loss of 
scarcely a man." 

The movement upon the north shore, however, was 
disastrous. Colonel Dudley, to whom the leadership had 
been assigned, succeeded in capturing and spiking the 
cannon; but "elated by success [he] followed the Indians, 
and was cut to pieces with his whole force." ^ 

At this point Proctor abandoned the siege, and retired 
to Fort Maiden, having received news that General Dear- 
born had captured Fort George.'' 

1 Smith, p. 477; M'Afee, p. 264; "Memoirs of Cassius M. Clay," I, p. 39. 

2 Young's " Battle of the Thames," p. 27. 

3 "Life and Memoirr, of Cassius M. Clay," I, p. 42. 

* Ibid. Details of Dudley's defeat, Collins, I, p. 304; Smith, pp. 477-478. 
6 M'Afee, pp. 275-277, prints a letter from General Harrison to Gov- 



346 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

The next few months were spent by Harrison in pre- 
paring his army for a decisive movement upon Maiden. 
Kentucky was again called upon for reinforcements, and 
when Congress adjourned, Colonel Richard M. Johnson, 
then a representative from Kentucky, raised a regiment 
of mounted volunteers and hastened to the front; while 
Governor Shelby, judging that the time had come for him 
to take the field in person,^ issued a proclamation calling 
for volunteers to assemble at Newport on August 31, 
prepared for a campaign. " I will meet you there in per- 
son," he said, "I will lead you to the field of battle, and 
share with you the dangers and honors of the campaign." ^ 

Upon the day appointed, four thousand Kentuckians 
met the Governor at the place of rendezvous, and, on 
September 12, 18 13, they reached the camp at Upper 
Sandusky, eager to avenge the horrors and barbarities 
of the Raisin and Fort Meigs. ^ 

ernor Shelby, dated Franklin, May 18, which gives graphic details of this en- 
gagement. 

1 Harrison had retired to Upper Sandusky, after Proctor's withdrawal, and 
had left Fort Meigs in charge of General Clay. On July 20, a second feeble 
attempt to captyre the fort was made by General Proctor, but it was easily 
repulsed. Proctor then turned his forces, numbering 1,500 men, against 
Fort Stephenson, held by Col. George Croghan, of Kentucky, with only 150 
Kentucky volunteers. So indefensible was the place that General Harrison had 
already ordered its abandonment; but the attack came too soon. Proctor made 
only one assault, which was so gallantly repulsed that he decided to give up the 
attempt and hastily returned to Maiden. Collins, I, p. 305. 

2 Full text of the Proclamation of July 31, 1813, in M'Afee, pp. 336-337. 

3 Young's " Battle of the Thames," p. 33, for a eulogy of the character of this 
detachment of Kentucky's best citizens, representing forty-eight of the fifty-six 
counties in the State. It was September 15, 1813, when they reached the camp 
on the Portage River, where they remained until the embarkation for Put-in-Bay 
on the twenty-first. It was evident that, if Governor Shelby had not brought his 
men on horseback, in defiance of General Harrison's suggestion, they could 
scarcely have arrived in time for the prompt following up of Perry's victory of 
September 10, 1813. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF 1812 347 

It was at this point that the aspect of aflFairs in the 
Northwest, was suddenly altered by one of the most timely 
and heroic victories in our naval history. Captain Oliver 
H. Perry had been sent by the War Department to Lake 
Erie, early in the spring, with orders to build a fleet, 
with which to gain command of the lake, and transport 
General Harrison's army into Canada, there to finish 
at one stroke the war in the Northwest. While Harrison 
had been resisting the attacks of General Proctor, Perry 
had been transforming the growing timber into effective 
fighting craft. By August 4, it was ready, and, on Septem- 
ber 10, it accomplished the first part of its mission, by 
signally defeating the British fleet under Captain Barclay,^ 
and winning control of the lake. This result Perry an- 
nounced to General Harrison in the famous dispatch which 
reads as follows: 

"U. S. Brig Niagara of the Western Sister, head of 
Lake Erie, Sept. 10, 1813, 4 o'clock P. M. 
" Dear General, 

"We have met the enemy; and they are ours. Two 
ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop. 

" Yours with great respect and esteem. 

"O.H.Perry. 
" Maj. Gen. Harrison." ^ 

No time was lost in carrying out the remainder of the 
program. Harrison's army, augmented, as we have said, 
by Governor Shelby and his mounted Kentuckians, was 

1 M'Afee, pp. 355-361, for details of Perry's victory; Schouler, II, p. 384. 

2 "Lexington Reporter," September 13, 1813. A detachment of one hun- 
dred and fifty Kentucky volunteers served as mariners upon Perry's fleet, and 
twenty-five were placed as sharpshooters in the tops, where their expert marks- 
manship made them very effective. Ibid., September 25, 1813. Also Collins, 
I, p. 306. 



348 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

ordered to advance. Leaving the horses on the American 
side of the lake, they boarded the vessels of Perry's fleet 
and the captured ships of the enemy, and joyfully crossed 
to the Canadian shore, ^ where General Harrison and 
Governor Shelby spoke these four words to them: "Re- 
member the Raisin River." To which Harrison added, 
"but remember it only whilst victory is suspended. The 

revenge of a soldier cannot be gratified on a fallen 

" 2 
enemy. 

The army of the West now advanced toward Fort 
Maiden, only to find it a mass of smoking ruins. Proc- 
tor had burned his barracks and begun a hasty retreat. 
"To-morrow," wrote General Harrison, as he sat that 
evening in his rough camp, " I will pursue the enemy, . . . 
although there is no probability of overtaking him, as he 
has upward of one thousand horses and we have not one 
in the army." ^ On the morrow, however, one "small 
pony was obtained," on which "the venerable Shelby was 
mounted,"^ and thus the invading army followed the re- 
treating enemy toward Detroit. 

At Sandwich,^ where the enemy were expected to make 
a stand, the army of the West halted, but General Proctor 
continued his retreat, in spite of Tecumseh's constant plea 
for battle.^ It was at this point that Colonel Johnson, 

1 The Pennsylvania regiment from Erie was seized with "constitutional 
scruples" about crossing into Canada, as M'Afee, p. 364, tells us. General Har- 
rison's reply was: "... Thank God, I have Kentuckians enough to go without 
you." Ibid. 

2 M'Afee, p. 370; M'Afee, pp. 366-369, prints in full the general order, 
prescribing the order of debarkation, of march and of battle, signed William 
Henry Harrison. 

3 M'Afee, p. 373. 

4 Young's " Battle of the Thames," p. 47. 

5 A point nearly opposite Detroit. 

8 Collins, I, p. 308. M'Afee, pp. 372-373, prints what purports to be a 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF 1 8 12 349 

with his regiment of Kentucky mounted volunteers, who 
had been left at Fort Meigs, was to join the main army; 
and their approach was awaited with great anxiety, as the 
Indians were known to be preparing an ambuscade for 
them. At noon on September 30, however, they safely 
entered Detroit, and Governor Shelby, himself, crossed 
over to see them safely transported, and to communicate 
to Colonel Johnson the plan of campaign which the Coun- 
cil of War had agreed upon. 

An ancient Kentucky tradition declares that General 
Harrison had expressed some doubts about the wisdom of 
pursuing the enemy into their own country, but that 
Governor Shelby had insisted upon this course, proclaim- 
ing, in language more vigorous than polite, that he would, 
" follow Proctor and his savages to Hell if necessary, to 
avenge the wrongs of Kentucky." The truthfulness of 
this story, so flattering to the governor and so uncom- 
plimentary to the commander-in-chief, may fairly be 
doubted; ^ but the determination to pursue was a fact. 

For three days the army of the West advanced rapidly 
eastward, skirting the southern shores of Lake St. Clair, 
and ascending the winding course of the River Thames, 
Perry's squadron following with the needed supplies. 
From time to time they gathered news of the enemy, 
sometimes from scouts, sometimes from British deserters 
who entered their camps. ^ At intervals they came upon 

speech addressed by Tecumseh to General Proctor, urging a stand against the 
Americans. 

1 Young's "Battle of the Thames," p. 45, declares it "pure fiction." 
M'Afee, p. 381, declares "there never was a difference of opinion" about the 
question of pursuit. 

2 Young's "Battle of the Thames" follows the march in detail, pp. 55-61, 
drawing liberally from M'Afee, pp. 382-388, the best original account. 



350 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

piles of military stores and provisions, abandoned by the 
enemy in their hurried retreat.^ Finally, on October 3d, a 
small body of British dragoons was captured, and one of 
their horses, being carelessly allowed to escape, dashed 
back into the camp of the British only a few miles away, 
giving Proctor and Tecumseh their first intimation that 
the enemy was close at hand. The British were therefore 
prepared for battle when, two days later, the army of the 
West advanced to attack them in their strong position in 
a beech wood, on the north bank of the Thames. 

Their left side was effectually protected by the river, 
whose banks, at this point, were about forty feet high;^ 
while on their right lay a swamp, in whose recesses the 
mass of the Indian allies found a most congenial vantage 
ground from which to resist the American attack. In 
actual numbers the two armies were probably about equal, 
but upon General Harrison devolved the difficult task of 
storming a protected position, with an army composed 
largely of volunteers.^ 

In preparing for the defence. General Proctor made the 

1 Most of the Indian allies had already deserted Proctor, whom they had 
learned to hate, but "Tecumseh the Loyal," had remained with him, and had 
held his braves to their duty. Letter dated the Moravian Village, October 3, 
1813; signed Peter Trisler, Jr., and addressed to his father. Durrett MSS. 
See also Collins, I, p. 307. 

2 Young's "Battle of the Thames," pp. 61-74, gives elaborate details of the 
placing of the two armies, the nature of the ground, etc., based in part upon 
M'Afee's, "History of the Late War in the Western Country," pp. 388-390. 

3 Colonel Paul's one hundred and twenty regulars were posted "between the 
road and the river," according to M'Afee, p. 390; but the rest of the troops 
mentioned in his account of the plan of the battle, pp. 389-390, are Kentucky 
troops. On p. 395, also, M'Afee says: "The whole of the regulars had been 
left behind, except the small fragment of a regiment under Colonel Paul." 
"The merit of furnishing the means by which this important victory was 
achieved," says the same author, pp. 398-399, "belongs almost exclusively to " 
Kentucky." 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF 1 8 12 35 1 

mistake of placing his men in open line, leaving about three 
feet between them,^ being ignorant of the fact that Colo- 
nel Johnson, and his brother. Lieutenant Colonel James 
Johnson, had carefully trained the Kentucky mounted vol- 
unteers to attack just this formation. 

Discovering this arrangement Colonel Johnson in- 
stantly reported it to General Harrison, with the assertion 
that "with his cavalry regiment, he could break the British 
line in a single charge." ^ Harrison at once authorized 
the movement, and formed his line of battle with a view 
to following it up. Major General Henry's division, com- 
posed of three Kentucky brigades, faced the British regu- 
lars, who occupied the strip between the small swamp 
and the river. At right angles to these, and facing the 
large swamp, where the main body of Indians were es- 
tablished, Harrison placed Major General Desha's di- 
vision, composed of two brigades of Kentucky volun- 
teers.^ 

"The crotchet formed by the front line and Gen. Desha's 
division," says Harrison's official report, "was an impor- 
tant point. At that place the venerable governor of Ken- 
tucky was posted, who at the age of sixty-six preserves the 
vigor of youth, the ardent zeal which distinguished him in 

1 Collins, I. p. 308. 

2 General Harrison, as commanding general at the battle of the Thames, 
deserves the credit, later claimed by him, for ordering this cavalry charge. But 
Colonel Johnson claimed also his rightful credit when, in response to inquiries 
from General Armstrong (December 22, 1834), he said: "It is due to truth to 
state that I requested General Harrison to permit me to charge, and, knowing 
that I had trained my men for it, during our short service, he gave me the or- 
der." Armstrong's "Notices of the War of 1812," I, p. 234. See Young, 
p. 65. 

3 Young's "Battle of the Thames," p. 63. The Appendix of this excellent 
monograph gives lists of the troops in each of the regiments, with officers, etc. 
Also Collins, I, p. 308, for brief description of formation, etc. 



352 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

the Revolutionary war, and the undaunted bravery which 
he manifested at King's mountain." ^ 

These arrangements having been completed, Colonel 
Johnson ordered his mounted Kentuckians to advance, 
but soon became aware of the fact that the space in front 
of the British regulars was large enough to permit of the ma- 
neuvering of only one of his mounted battalions. Hastily 
inspecting the small swamp on his left, and finding that it 
could be passed in places by mounted troops, he ordered 
his brother. Lieutenant Colonel James Johnson, to charge 
the British regulars in his front with one battalion, while 
he himself led the other across the swamp, upon Tecum- 
seh's Indians.^ Then rose the harsh cry of Kentucky ven- 
geance, " Remember the Raisin," as the lines dashed for- 
ward. 

The charge against the British regulars, on the right, was 
immediately successful. The first line of redcoats wavered 
and gave way, and, when the second, a hundred yards in 
the rear, offered no serious resistance, the Kentucky horse- 
men passed through it, and, instantly dismounting, opened 
fire. The British regulars, thus caught between the ad- 
vancing Kentucky infantry and the dismounted battalion 
of cavalry, lost all hope and surrendered at discretion.^ 

In the meantime. Colonel Johnson and the second bat- 
talion, who had now crossed the little swamp, were meeting 
a very different reception at the hands of Tecumseh and 
his braves. Conscious of the difficulty of his task, of dis- 

1 "Lexington Reporter," October 13, 1813, for full text of Harrison's re- 
port to Secretary Armstrong. 

2 M'Afee, p. 390. 

3 General Proctor succeeded in making his escape, accompanied by a few 
followers, for which timely departure he was afterwards severely reprimanded 
by his royal master. Schouler, II, p. 385. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF 1 8 12 353 

lodging and capturing a savage army, Colonel Johnson had 
adopted the heroic device of leading forward a small band 
of twenty picked men, to draw the fire of the hidden enemy, 
and thus render safe the advance of his main body of troops. 

As this "Forlorn Hope" moved steadily forward, they 
were conscious that the guns of fifteen hundred savages 
were covering them with a sure aim, but the fighting blood 
of the Kentucky pioneers burned in their veins, and they 
neither wavered nor shrank from the sacrifice. Then came 
the clear voice of savage command from the edge of the 
great marsh — "Fire!" 

When the smoke of the terrific cannonade had cleared, 
fifteen of the twenty heroes of the "Forlorn Hope" lay in 
their death throes. Their leader, by some miracle of grace, 
still sat erect, although pierced by a dozen wounds;^ while, 
in the rear, the remainder of the battalion was pressing 
forward, eager to make the most of the advantage given 
them by the heroism of their slaughtered comrades. 

At the edge of the great swamp the horses became use- 
less, and Colonel Johnson ordered his men to dismount,^ 
and charge the savages. Behind them the Kentucky in- 
fantry advanced to their aid, but Tecumseh held his braves 
to their work, and, for a quarter of an hour, the result re- 
mained in doubt. Then the gallant Tecumseh, the soul of 
the savage hosts, fell, pierced by a ball from the pistol 
of Colonel Johnson himself, as tradition declares.^ At the 

1 The " Forlorn Hope " was led by William Whitley, a private of Lincoln 
County, Kentucky, but Colonel Johnson himself rode with it. The names of 
other members are given by Young, p. 81. See also Ibid., p. 144. 

2 Col. Johnson, however, remained mounted upon his white mare, which 
picked her way with difficulty through the mud and underbrush of the great 
swamp. 

3 Schouler, II, p. 385; Young, pp. 87-88, gives details of a personal combat 

Kentucky — 23 



354 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

news of the death of their chief, whom they had been taught 
to regard as immortal, the savages gave way, and escaped 
as best they could from the scene of disaster. 

The victory of the Thames was decisive, so far as the 
war in the Northwest was concerned. The British-Indian 
alliance was broken: Detroit, Michigan, and all that Hull 
had so ignominiously surrendered was regained; and a 
large part of upper Canada passed under Americah con- 
trol, while, " among American generals in this war, Harri- 
son enjoyed the rare felicity of having fully accomplished 
his undertaking." This he had done with an army com- 
posed almost entirely of Kentucky volunteers.^ 

General Harrison, in his official report of the battle,^ 
thus expresses his appreciation of the heroism of his Ken- 
tucky army. 

"... In communicating to the President through you 
sir! (Secretary of War) my opinion of the conduct of the 
officers who served under my command, I am at a loss 
how to mention that of Governor Shelby, being convinced 
that no eulogium of mine can reach his merits. The 
governor of an independent State, greatly my superior in 
years, in experience and in military character, he placed 
himself under my command, and was not more remarkable 
for his zeal and activity than for the promptitude and 
cheerfulness with which he obeyed my orders. Major 

between Johnson and an Indian leader, whom he seems inclined to identify 
with Tecumseh. Lossing's "Pictorial Field Book of the War of 1812," p. 555. 
Johnson's monument in the cemetery at Frankfort contains a relief representing 
the general in the act of firing the fatal shot. A picture of the monument will 
be found on p. 496 of this same volume. M'Afee, p. 394, also tends to favor the 
story. 

1 Schouler, II, pp. 385-386; M'Afee, pp. 398-399. 

2 "Lexington Reporter," October 30, 1813. M'Afee, p. 397, prints a part 
of this report. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF l8l2 355 

Generals Henry and Desha and the Brigadiers Allen, 
Caldwell, King, Childs, and Trotter, all of the Kentucky 
volunteers, manifested heroic zeal and activity. Of Gover- 
nor Shelby's staff, his adjutant General Col. M'Dowell, 
and his quarter master General, Col. Walker, rendered 
great service, as did his aids de camp. General Adair, and 
Majors Barry, and Crittenden. The military skill of the 
former v^^as of great service to us, and the activity of the 
two latter gentlemen could not be surpassed. . . ." 

This was the last campaign in which General Harrison 
engaged during the war. His services and those of Ken- 
tucky's venerable chief magistrate, Isaac Shelby, were 
fully appreciated by Congress which, in a resolution of 
April 6, 1818,^ declares that thanks, "are hereby presented 
to Major General W. Henry Harrison and Isaac Shelby, 
late Governor of Kentucky, and through them to the of- 
ficers and men under their command, for their gallantry 
and good conduct in defeating the combined British 
and Indian forces under Major General Proctor, on the 
Thames in upper Canada, on the 5th day of October 1813, 
capturing the British army with their baggage, camp 
equipage and artillery; and that the President of the United 
States be requested to cause two gold medals to be struck, 
emblematical of this triumph, and presented to General 
Harrison and Isaac Shelby, late Governor of Kentucky."^ 

With the remaining campaigns v/hich took place before 

1 It passed the House on March 30, 1818. See " Annals of Congress." 

2 Shelby's "Autobiography." An attempt to secure the passage of this 
resolution had been made at an earlier date, but, owing to the activity of certain 
enemies in Congress, Harrison's name had been stricken out, and Shelby had 
promptly instructed his friends to refuse, in his name, any honorable recognition 
of his services at the battle of the Thames in which Harrison did not share. 
Young's "Battle of the Thames," p. 122. 



356 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

the negotiation of the Treaty of Ghent (concluded De- 
cember 24, 1 8 14) we are not particularly concerned, as 
Kentucky did not play a controlling part in any one of 
them; but an ancient controversy as to the conduct of the 
Kentucky militia in the final battle of the war, the defence 
of New Orleans, renders it necessary to examine some of 
the events in that memorable victory. This is the only 
battle on record in which the gallantry of Kentucky troops 
has been officially questioned; and, in this instance, it 
was more than questioned in the official reports of two of 
the officers in command. 

Commodore Patterson, in a report to the Secretary of 
the Navy,^ makes the charge thus: "... General Mor- 
gan's right wing, composed ... of the Kentucky militia, 
commanded by Major Davis, abandoned their breast- 
works, flying in a most shameful and dastardly manner, 
almost without a shot." 

General Andrew Jackson, the commanding general of 
the engagement, is even more severe. He declares that:^ 

"Simultaneously with the advance upon my lines, he 
(General Pakenham) had thrown over in his boats a con- 
siderable force to the other side (west side), of the river. 
These having landed were hardy enough to advance 
against the works of General Morgan; and, what is strange 
and difficult to account for, at the very moment when their 
entire discomforture was looked for with a confidence ap- 
proaching to certainty, the Kentucky reinforcements in 
whom so much reliance had been placed, INGLORI- 

1 Dated Marine Battery, five miles below New Orleans, January 13, 1815. 
Durrett MSS., A. 

2 From Jackson's official report. Text, "Historical Memoirs of the War in 
West Florida and Louisiana in 1814-15," by Major A. Lacarriere Latour, 
App. xxix. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF 1812 357 

OUSLY FLED, drawing after them, by their example, 
the remainder of the forces; and thus yielding to the 
enemy that most formidable position." 

If these accusations prove true, Kentucky's part in the 
battle of the west bank must appear as inglorious as that 
in the contest on the right bank had been gallant. If they 
prove false, we shall remove from history the only stigma 
that has ever rested upon her reputation for courage. 

When the Federal authorities became aware that the 
British were planning to send a great expedition to the 
mouth of the Mississippi, the Secretary of War issued 
requisitions to the States for ninety-three thousand five 
hundred additional troops. Kentucky's quota was five 
thousand five hundred infantry, of whom only two 
thousand two hundred were destined for a part in the de- 
fence of New Orleans.^ These were promptly enlisted 
and, under the command of Major General John Thomas, 
with Brigadier General John Adair as second in com- 
mand,^ reached New Orleans on January 4, 18 15, where 
they found the two armies already confronting one another, 
and preparing for a decisive engagement. 

The British army, under the command of Lord Edward 
Pakenham (who had been one of Wellington's favorites in 
the Peninsular camipaign), was officered almost exclusively 
by men who had learned the art of war under "The Iron 
Duke" himself, and consisted of ten thousand veterans.^ 

1 Smith's "Battle of New Orleans," " Filson Club Publications," No. XIX, 
p. 27. Collins, I, p. 28, gives the number as 2,500, which was probably the 
number which Governor Shelby had intended to send to New Orleans. M'Afee, 
p. 502, ibid. 

2 M'Afee, p. 502; Collins, II, p. ^^. Governor Shelby had appointed John 
Adair Adjutant General of the Kentucky troops, with the brevet rank of Urig- 
adier, in recognition of his gallantry at the battle of the Thames. 

3 Major Latour, Jackson's chief engineer, compiled, from British official 



358 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

In spite of the overwhelming strength of this army 
of invasion, the Kentucky troops found General Jack- 
son confident of his ability to defend the city. In two inde- 
cisive engagements ^ he had already taught the conquerors 
of the great Napoleon to respect the militia of the New 
Republic, and had sworn, with his customary oath, "By 
the Eternal," to drive them from the land. His military 
prudence had, however, led him to send swift messengers 
northward, to urge the detachments of Kentucky and Ten- 
nessee militia to make all possible haste to reach New 
Orleans. 

It is not likely that this urgent message was in any 
way responsible for the fact that the Kentucky troops 
entered the city of New Orleans, on January 4, 18 15, as 
•an army without arms or proper equipment. General 
Jackson himself, in a letter to the War Department, has 
recorded the fact that, " Hardly one third of the Kentucky 
troops, so long expected, are armed; and the arms they 
have are barely fit for use."^ The responsibility for this, 
as for so many similar misfortunes during this war, must 
rest with the War Department. Arms had been collected 
at Pittsburg, and were to be sent down the Mississippi to 
New Orleans, together with certain military stores, which 
were almost as essential to General Jackson's army as arms 
themselves: but the quartermaster, appointed to super- 
intend the shipment, had, for some unaccountable reason, 
chosen to send them by flatboat, instead of by steamer, 
as the result of which they did not reach New Orleans 

sources, a detailed statement of these troops. With the royal marines and sailors 
from the fleet, about 4,450 in number, he places the force at 14,450. 

1 Smith's "Battle of New Orleans," pp. 40-52, gives details of the first, and, 
on pp. 56-64, of the second of these engagements. 

2 Latour, p. 142. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF 1812 359 

for many days after the battle,^ and, in consequence, the 
Kentucky troops went into camp without tents, or proper 
bedding, most of them without arms, and many without 
the necessary clothing and cooking utensils. Their suf- 
ferings were somewhat alleviated by a relief fund of six 
thousand dollars, generously voted by the Louisiana Legis- 
lature,^ and later supplemented by a gift of ten thousand 
dollars, raised by public subscription; while the women of 
New Orleans showed their humanity by making and dis- 
tributing such garments as could be quickly prepared for 
use. By these relief measures, the physical needs of the 
Kentucky troops were met after a fashion; but the ques- 
tion of arming them was not so easy of solution. 

On the seventh of January, the day before the decisive 
battle, only six hundred of the Kentucky troops had been 
furnished with arms;^ and General Adair decided to make 
an appeal to the Mayor and Committee of Safety of the city 
of New Orleans. He knew that the city armory contained 
several hundred stand of arms, kept constantly on hand for 
use in case of sudden insurrection; but he did not know 
that General Jackson was counting upon these very arms 
for the equipment of a reserve, which could be sent to any 
point most threatened, when the battle should begin. "^ The 

1 The same want of efficiency marked the transportation of the troops them- 
selves. When the Kentucky troops were called for, Governor Shelby was as- 
sured that the United States quartermaster would furnish suitable transportation 
for them. When, however, the detachment reached the place of embarkation, 
on the banks of the Ohio River, they found no boats; and Colonel Richard 
Taylor, quartermaster of the Kentucky militia, was compelled to borrow money 
and purchase such boats as could be secured, at the last moment. The accom- 
modations were quite inadequate, and much of the necessary camp equipment 
had to be left behind. 

2 Smith's "Battle of New Orleans," p. 67. 

3 Ibid., p. 73. 

* The Jackson-Adair correspondence (Durrett MSS., A) clearly shows this. 



360 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

Mayor and Committee of Safety agreed to allow General 
Adair to take the arms, upon condition that their removal 
should be accomplished secretly, as they feared to let the 
populace know that they were gone, and accordingly, when 
night came, the arms were secretly hauled to the Ken- 
tucky camp and distributed.^ 

Thus on the morning of January 8, the day of the great 
battle, about one thousand of the twenty-two hundred 
Kentucky troops marched to their places with effective 
weapons in their hands. ^ There still remained twelve 
hundred without arms, or armed only with the an- 
cient fowling pieces which they had brought from their 
homes. 

In the preliminary discussion as to placing the American 
troops, General Adair had suggested ^ that it would be wise 
to reserve several detachments which should be ready, at 
a moment's notice, to reenforce the points most threatened 
by the veteran columns of the enemy."* Jackson had ap- 
proved the suggestion, and ordered Adair to place his 
one thousand armed Kentuckians, just in the rear of 
General Carroll's Tennesseeans, who were to occupy eight 

Jackson, in one of these letters, complains that Adair should have known of his 
plan to arm 500 Kentuckians with the store of arms in the city arsenal. Adair 
admits that this plan had been made known to General Thomas, chief com- 
mander of the Kentucky troops, but explains that General Thomas was ill in 
his tent, while he himself was in the city, and had not heard of the plan until too 
late. 

1 Smith's "Battle of New Orleans," p. 74. 

2 "With this timely supply of arms we were enabled to bring on the lines on 
the morning of the eighth fully 1,000 men. This corps was stationed . . . 
some distance in the rear of the breastwork, with the sole view that they might 
be led to the defence of any part of the works where their services might be most 
useful and necessary." Adair to Jackson, March 2c, 1815. Durrett MSS. 

3 General Thomas being ill. General Adair commanded the Kentuckians. 
Collins, I, p. 314; M'Afee, p. 516. 

* Smith's "Battle of New Orleans," p. 74. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF 1812 36 1 

hundred yards in the center of the breastworks on the 
eastern side of the river.^ 

Against this point, the massive columns of the British 
army advanced at an early hour. General Adair formed 
his Kentuckians into two lines, and brought them forward 
to the support of the Tennesseeans. The combined force 
of Kentucky and Tennessee riflemen were then arranged 
in open order, line behind line, in order that the first line 
having fired might give place to the second, which in turn 
would yield to the third, and so on, until the entire body 
had delivered its fire, the rear ranks meanwhile recharg- 
ing their pieces." 

The columns of the British were at first hidden by a 
dense fog; but, at the first discharge of artillery, this 
slowly lifted, disclosing a force which left no doubt of the 
fact that the enemy had selected this point for the main 
assault.^ The field over which they advanced was " as level 
as the surface of the calmest lake," and their lines were 
steady and resolute, even under the fire from the Ameri- 
can artillery, which was sending its shots ploughing through 
them from front to rear. 

The Kentucky and Tennessee riflemen, behind the high 
fortifications,'^ meanwhile stood quiet, waiting for the 
enemy to come within one hundred and fifty yards. To 

1 M'Afee, p. 516. 

2 Smith's "Kentucky," p. 498. Shaler, p. 170, conceives that the plan was 
for the rear ranks to pass the loaded muskets forward to those on the front 
line of battle; but such a plan would scarcely have appealed to the men 
behind these guns. 

3 McAfee, p. 518. 

* The parapet was about five feet high, and from ten to twenty feet thick at 
its base, extending from the river banks 1,000 yards eastward. Beyond that, a 
breastwork was formed of a double row of logs, laid one over the other, the 
space between being filled with earth. Smith's "Battle of New Orleans," p. 70. 



362 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

that point they quickly advanced, some even reaching the 
edge of the ditch, carrying ladders with which to scale the 
parapet; but they came no farther. The musketry and 
rifles, manned by pioneers of deadly aim, suddenly opened 
fire all along the fortifications. The ranks wavered for 
a moment, broke into disorder and retreated, the com- 
mander-in-chief, the second in command, and a host of in- 
ferior officers having been sacrificed. 

General Lambert, who now succeeded to the command 
of the British forces,^ rallied his men for a second attack, 
but their spirit was gone, and a disastrous repulse was 
the result. 

Thus was the main body of Lord Pakenham's invading 
army of ten thousand veterans decisively defeated, by a 
force not exceeding forty-six hundred men,^ of whom al- 
most one-fourth were Kentuckians. 

The effect produced upon the British army by the daring 
coolness of a single Kentucky rifleman is thus graphically 
described by one of the British officers, who took part in 
this historic engagement: 

"We marched in solid column in a direct line, upon the 
American defences. I belonged to the staff^; and as we 
advanced, we watched through our glasses, the position 
of the enemy, with that intensity an officer only feels when 
marching into the jaws of death. It was a strange sight, 
that breastwork, with the crowds of beings behind, their 
heads only visible above the line of defence. We could 
distinctly see their long rifles lying on the works, and the 

' Collins, I, pp. 314-315- 

2 Smith's "Battle of New Orleans," p. 75. Collins, I, p. 316, gives Jackson 
4,698 men, of whom a considerable part v/ere not engaged, while to the British 
he gives 6,893 actually engaged in the attack. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF 1812 363 

batteries in our front, with their great mouths gaping 
towards us. 

*' We could also see the position of General Jackson, 
with his staff around him. But what attracted our at- 
tention most, was the figure of a tall man standing on the 
breastworks, dressed in linsey-woolsey, with buckskin 
leggins, and a broad-brimmed felt hat that fell round the 
face, almost concealing the features. He was standing in 
one of those picturesque graceful attitudes peculiar to 
those natural men dwelling in forests. The body rested 
on the left leg, and swayed with a curved line upward. 
The right arm was extended, the hand grasping the rifle 
near the muzzle, the butt of which rested near the toe of 
his right foot. With the left hand he raised the rim of the 
hat from his eyes, and seemed gazing intently on our ad- 
vancing column. The cannon of the enemy had opened 
on us, and tore through our works with dreadful slaughter; 
but v/e continued to advance, unwavering and cool, as if 
nothing threatened our progress. 

" The roar of cannon had no effect upon the figure before 
us; he seemed fixed and motionless as a statue. At last 
he moved, threv/ back his hat-rim over the crown with his 
left hand, raised the rifle to the shoulder, and took aim 
at our group. 

"Our eyes were riveted upon him; at whom had he 
leveled his piece ? But the distance was so great, that we 
looked at each other and smiled. We saw the rifle flash, 
and very rightly conjectured that his aim was in the direc- 
tion of our party. My right hand companion, as noble a 
fellow as ever rode at the head of a regiment, fell from his 
saddle. 

"The hunter paused a few moments, without moving 



364 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

his gun from his shoulders. Then he reloaded and as- 
sumed his former attitude. Throwing the hat-rim over 
his eyes, and again holding it up with the left hand, he 
fixed his piercing gaze upon us, as if hunting out another 
victim. Once more the hat-rim was thrown back, and the 
gun raised to his shoulder. This time we did not smile, 
but cast glances at each other, to see which of us must die. 
"When again the rifle flashed, another one of our party 
dropped to the earth. There was something most awful 
in this marching on to certain death. The cannon and 
thousands of musket balls playing upon our ranks, we 
cared not for; for there was a chance of escaping them. 
Most of us had walked as coolly upon batteries more de- 
structive, without quailing; but to know that every time 
that rifle was leveled toward us, and its bullet sprang from 
the barrel, one of us must surely fall; to see it rest, motion- 
less as if poised on a rack, and know, when the hammer 
came down, that the messenger of death drove unerringly 
to its goal, to know this, and still march on, was awful. I 
could see nothing but the tall figure standing on the breast- 
works; he seemed to grow, phantom-like, higher and 
higher, assuming, through the smoke, the supernatural 
appearance of some great spirit of death. Again did he 
reload and discharge, and reload and discharge his rifle, 
with the same unfailing aim, and the same unfailing result; 
and it was with indescribable pleasure that I beheld, as 
we neared the American lines, the sulphurous cloud gather- 
ing around us, and shutting that spectral hunter from our 
gaze. We lost the battle; and to my mind, the Kentucky 
rifleman contributed more to our defeat, than anything 
else; for while he remained in our sight, our attention was 
drawn from our duties; and when, at last, he became in- 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF l8l2 365 

shrouded in the smoke, the work was complete; we were 
in utter confusion, and unable, in the extremity, to restore 
order sufficient to make any successful attack. — The bat- 
tle was lost."^ 

So much for the conduct of General Adair's one thou- 
sand armed Kentuckians in the great battle on the cast 
bank. We must now consider the one hundred and seventy 
Kentuckians who shared, or — as General Jackson and 
Commodore Patterson expressed it — who caused the defeat 
of the Americans on the west bank, during that same 
eventful day. 

In preparing his defences, General Jackson had care- 
fully provided against the possibility of an attack by way 
of the west bank of the Mississippi. Major Latour, the 
chief engineer, had been sent over to select a line for de- 
fensive works on that side of the river. He had indicated 
a position in which, as he afterwards declared, " one thou- 
sand men could have guarded a breastwork line, and half 
that number would have been sufficient, had pieces of 
cannon been mounted in the intended outworks."' 

But General Morgan, whom Jackson had placed in com- 
mand of the defences on the west bank,'^ after a conference 
with Commodore Patterson, decided to disregard Major 
Latour's expert advice. Instead of the position which the 
chief engineer had selected, he chose a line ^ lower down 
the stream, where he would be under the protection of the 

1 This manuscript is marked, " Kentucky Rifleman in battle of New Orleans," 
Durrett Collection. The hero here described was E. M. Brank of Greenville, 
Kentucky. 

2 Latour's "Historical Memoir of the War in West Florida and Louisiana in 
1814-15," pp. 167-168. 

3 General Morgan commanded the Louisiana militia. Latour, p. 166. 

* The Court of Inquiry later gave the choice of this line as one of the causes 
of the defeat on the west bank. 



366 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

twelve pieces of cannon of Commodore Patterson's battery, 
on the right bank. This line, having been duly approved 
by the commander-in-chief, was provided with a breast- 
work mounting three pieces of artillery, and behind it 
General Morgan, on January 7, massed his Louisiana 
troops, — some five hundred in number. Their position 
was critical. On their right stretched an open plain about 
a mile in width, undefended by fortifications of any kind, 
where the advancing enemy might operate at will, subject 
only to the fire of Commodore Patterson's guns from the 
right bank,^ and of the few defences of the breastwork by 
the river. 

The weakness at this point did not escape the keen eyes 
of General Jackson, who designed to employ the unarmed 
Kentuckians for the defence of this open plain. There 
were in camp twelve hundred of these, and, for arming 
such of them as he planned sending to the west bank. 
General Jackson counted upon the arms, which the Mayor 
and Committee of Safety always kept stored in the city 
armory. 

These arms. General Adair had already borrowed, and 
was waiting for nightfall to distribute them to his Ken- 
tuckians; but General Jackson, not having been informed 
of this fact (as the arms were regarded as a private store), 
issued orders for five hundred of the Kentuckians to 
march into New Orleans and secure them. It was late in 
the afternoon of January 7, when they started upon this 
long tramp of ten miles, through mud and water; and, 
when they reached the city armory, they were informed 
that General Adair had already removed the arms. 

With great difficulty, about one hundred and seventy 

1 Smith's "Battle of New Orleans," pp. 95, 97. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF l8l2 367 

ancient guns of various patterns were secured; and, pro- 
vided with these, one hundred and seventy of this un- 
fortunate detachment of Kentucky volunteers, under the 
command of Colonel Davis, crossed the river, and marched 
through the darkness of night to the camp of General 
Morgan. 

They arrived shortly before daylight of January 8th,^ 
to find the camp already in commotion. News had come 
that a body of British troops had landed on the west 
bank, and that Major Arnaud who had been sent down 
the river to check their advance, was retiring before them.^ 
The weary Kentuckians were at once ordered to march 
to his assistance.^ For twenty-four hours not one of them 
had slept; they had marched, without food, almost con- 
tinuously since the afternoon of the previous day; they were 
armed with an assortment of guns with whose efficiency 
they were not acquainted, but which, to say the least, did 
not give them great confidence. Some were old flintlock 
muskets, which were by no means certain to fire, when 
wielded by men unaccustomed to their use.'* Some were 
guns whose bore was too small for the cartridges which 
had been provided; some were old muskets or, fowling 
pieces; while more than one man was in effect unarmed, 
the lock of his gun being out of commission. However, 

1 Latour's "Historic Memoir," p. 170. 

2 Major Arnaud's detachment consisted of 150 Louisiana militia. Smith's 
"Battle of New Orleans," p. 99. 

3 "General Morgan despatched the Kentuckians, immediately on their 
arrival, about 4 A. m., to reinforce a party which had been sent out early on the 
night of the 7th, to watch and oppose the landing of the enemy." Commodore 
Patterson's Report; Copy, Durrett MSS. 

4 This description of the arms I have gathered, in part, from the conversations 
of elderly Kentuckians, whose fathers or near relatives were members of Colonel 
Davis's detachment. For the most part, however, I have depended upon the 
account in Smith's "Battle of New Orleans," p. 99. 



368 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

at the word of command, they advanced to the support 
of Major Arnaud and his one hundred and fifty Louisiana 
mihtia, who were facing what proved to be a British de- 
tachment of one thousand men, under Colonel Thornton. 

About a mile below General Morgan's line, the advanc- 
ing Kentuckians and the retreating Louisianians came to- 
gether. A stand against so overwhelming a force of British 
was of course out of the question; and the Louisiana mili- 
tia, observing the size of their reenforcement, retired to the 
shelter of a neighboring wood, and took no further part in 
the engagements of the day. 

The Kentuckians, after trying the effect of several vol- 
leys, were glad to retreat, at the command of General 
Morgan's aid-de-camp, who had just joined them.^ This 
retreat was made in good order, and in obedience to a 
command, v/hich it would have been military insubordina- 
tion to disregard, even had they so desired. 

Upon reaching the main line of General Morgan's de- 
fences, the Kentuckians were assigned a position far to 
the right of the fortifications, upon the open plain. Be- 
tween them and Morgan's right, there stretched a space 
of two hundred yards, while the line, which they were 
called upon to defend, was about three hundred yards in 
length.^ Beyond them, on their right, lay a wide plain, 
wholly undefended except by a body of eighteen pickets, 
under Colonel Caldwell.^ Their position might, therefore, 
be easily turned, either on the right or on the left, and 
was extremely precarious, in view of the strength of the 
British detachment now advancing upon them. 

iM'Afee, p. 519. 

2 General Orders of Court of Inquiry, held at New Orleans, on February 19, 
1815. Full text Smith's "B'attle of New Orleans," pp. iio-iii. 
SM'Afee, p. 519. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF 1 8 12 369 

Colonel Thornton, who commanded that force, instantly 
saw his opportunity, and promptly availed himself of it. 
A part of his force was turned against the intrenchments 
near the river, behind which lay General Morgan and his 
five hundred Louisiana militia, with three cannon to pro- 
tect them; but this, as Gleig,^ the English historian, seems 
to imply, was only designed to distract General Mor- 
gan's attention from the main attack, which was directed 
against the isolated Kentuckians.' To turn their unpro- 
tected wings, and attack them from the rear, was his pur- 
pose, and it was easily accomplished. Flanked at both ex- 
tremities by four times their own number, and unsup- 
ported, the Kentucky militia, after firing several volleys, 
"gave way;" writes Latour, "nor was it possible . . . 
to rally them. . . . Confidence had vanished, and with 
it all spirit of resistance. . . ." ^ 

When we picture to ourselves the position of these one 
hundred and seventy Kentuckians, with their ancient arms, 
we wonder, not that "confidence had vanished," but that 
it had ever existed. "What could be expected from men 
thus dispirited, ill armed, and exhausted with inanition 
and fatigue?" asks the same author,^ and himself re- 

1 " Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans." By 
Rev. George Robert Gleig, pp. 336-339. 

2 Latour, however, seems to consider the attack on the intrenchments near 
the river as a serious one, after the failure of which, the attack on the isolated 
Kentuckians was made. He says that the artillery and musketry of Gen- 
eral Morgan's Louisiana troops "having obliged him to fall back, he next di- 
rected his attack against [the detached Kentuckians on] our right, one column 
moving toward the wood and the other toward the center of the line. . . . 
Now . . . was felt the effect of the bad position that we occupied." Latour's 
"Historical Memoir," p. 172. 

3 Latour's "Historical Memoir," p. 172. 

* Ibid., p. 170. I am quite conscious that Latour writes as, in a sense, a 
partisan in this case. The line of defence, which he had selected and urged, had 
Kentucky — 24 



370 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

plies,^ " I believe . . . that veteran troops of the line, in less 
perilous situations, have not unfrequently been seized with 
panic, and given way; nor do I think that any mili- 
tary man of much experience will be surprised that 
militia troops, ill armed, drawn like Indians, on an 
immense front, seeing themselves turned and cut off 
by troops of the line, quitted their post and retired in 
disorder. . . ." ^ 

This "disgraceful example," says Commodore Patter- 
son,^ "was soon followed by the whole of General Morgan's 
command, notwithstanding every exertion was made by 
him, his staff and several officers of the city militia, to keep 
them to their posts. . . . The flight of the Kentuckians 
paralyzed their exertions and produced a retreat which 
could not be checked. . . ." 

When we recall the fact that General Morgan and Com- 
modore Patterson had chosen to fortify a position which 
the Chief Engineer of Jackson's army, had condemned, 
we must feel that it is unsafe to rely too implicitly upon 
their version of the cause of the defeat on the west 
bank. But when their reports, laying the responsibility 
upon the one hundred and seventy Kentucky militia, 
reached Jackson, he was in no position to discount them, 
and, upon the basis of the information which they con- 
tained, prepared, the next day, January 9, 18 15, his official 



been abandoned, in favor of the one now under discussion. His natural impulse 
would be, therefore, to see and describe it in the worst possible light. But, in 
this instance, the facts seem to fully justify his opinion. 

1 "Historical Memoir," pp. 174-175. 

2 Gleig, p. 339, says that Thornton's attack was greatly aided by the false 
report that "all had gone well on the opposite bank." 

3 Report of Secretary of the Navy, dated Marine Battery, five miles below 
New Orleans, January 13, 1815. Durrett MSS. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF l8l2 37 1 

report ^ to the Secretary of War, a report which all loyal 
Kentuckians familiar with the facts promptly challenged, 
as unfair and untrue.' 

General Adair, as commander of the Kentucky militia, 
demanded a court of inquiry, which was convened at 
once, and a note was sent to General Morgan,^ request- 
ing him to introduce such witnesses as he chose, at a 
hearing to be held on the following day. It is only fair to 
suppose that all available factswere presented in support of 
a charge, which had found its way into General Jackson's 
official report, through the medium of Commodore Patter- 
son and General Morgan."* But the verdict of the court '^ 
is a clear acquittal of the Kentucky troops. Their conduct 

1 Durrett MSS. Shaler, "Kentucky," p. 171, attributes Jackson's unrea- 
sonable severity against the Kentucky troops to a permanent jealousy between 
Kentuckians and Tennesseeans, Jackson being, "by affiliation," a Tennesseean. 
This, however, seems an insufficient explanation. 

2 Commodore Patterson's report to the Secretary of the Navy, dated 
January 13, 1815, was, if possible, even more severe upon the unfortunate 
Kentucky detachment. He magnifies their number to "about four hundred 
militia from Kentucky, very badly armed or equipped, the general not having 
arms to furnish them. ..." Copy of Text, Durrett MSS. But it was the 
fierce censure of the commander-in-chief which most exasperated the people 
of Kentucky. 

•* Dated New Orleans, February 9, 1815, and signed by Major General Wm. 
Carroll, President of the Court. Full text, Smith's "Battle of New Orleans," 
p. 109. 

4 Major Latour, before publishing his "Historical Memoirs of the War of 
1812-15," wrote to General Morgan a letter (now the property of Judge Wm. H. 
Seymour of New Orleans, printed in full in Smith's "Battle of New Orleans," 
p. 119), declaring, "... I am of opinion that you are to bear the blame of our 
disgrace on that part of our defence." He then lays his account of the battle 
before General Morgan, with the request for evidence proving the inaccuracy 
of the views presented. If any reply was made, it is lost, and Major Latour's 
book appeared without corrections in General Morgan's favor. 

5 Dated New Orleans, La., February 19, 1815. Full text, Durrett MSS. 
See also "Spirit of '76," April 12, 1827, and following numbers, for a series of 
articles dealing with the whole question of the conduct of the Kentucky troops, 
and Jackson's censure of them. 



372 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

is declared "not reprehensible," the real cause of the dis- 
aster being ascribed to "the shameful flight of the com- 
mand of Major Arnaud, sent to oppose the landing of the 
enemy;" and to "the manner in which the force vs^^as placed 
on the line" of defence. 

General Jackson approved this verdict, thus admitting 
the injustice of his obnoxious report; but General Adair 
felt that justice demanded a revision of the official report 
itself,^ as the vs^ords of the victor of New Orleans would 
have much greater publicity than the report of a court 
of inquiry. Andrew Jackson, however, was not a man to 
submit to dictation, even as to the method of rectifying an 
admitted error. He still cherished the belief, which indeed 
was well founded, that, by removing the arms from the city 
arsenal, General Adair had made it impossible for him to 
carry out his plan of adequately reenforcing General Mor- 
gan's position. He therefore refused General Adair's re- 
quest; the result of which refusal was an intensely bitter, 
and increasingly abusive and personal correspondence be- 
tween the two generals,^ ending, as such controversies usu- 
ally ended in those days, in a challenge. A meeting with 
pistols was arranged; but, by the timely mediation of 
friends, the duel was averted, a reconciliation having been 
effected upon the field, in the presence of seconds, sur- 
geons and invited friends.^ 

1 As the Jackson-Adair correspondence (Durrett MSS., A) clearly shows, 
the Kentucky people felt that, not only had Jackson slandered the Kentuckians 
who had fought on the west bank, but that he had failed to do justice to the 
gallantry of those who defended his center in the greater contest on the east 
bank. 

2 Durrett MSS., A, for the correspondence, which throws much light upon 
the unfortunate misunderstandings, which led to the disaster on the west bank. 

3 This account of the meeting was gathered from oral traditions by Mr. Z. F. 
Smith. It is given, in fuller detail, in his "Battle of New Orleans," pp. 113-114. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF 1 8 12 373 

General Adair's championship of the cause of Kentucky 
honor was deeply appreciated by the Kentucky people, 
who, through their Legislature, publicly thanked him "for 
his spirited vindication of a respectable portion of the 
troops of Kentucky from the libelous imputation of cow- 
ardice most unjustly thrown upon them by General An- 
drew Jackson." ^ 

As the defeat of General Morgan's command on the 
west bank did not affect the final result of the battle of 
New Orleans, so that great victory itself did not influence 
the outcome of the war of 18 12, for the reason that peace 
had been concluded before it was fought.^ 

In the negotiations leading to the treaty of peace, Ken- 
tucky's great statesman, Henry Clay, played a leading 
part. At the call of the President, he had resigned his post- 
as Speaker of the House, and had retired to Gottingen, 
where the negotiations were opened. Associated with him 
in this important embassy, were Albert Gallatin, James 
A. Bayard, John Quincy Adams and Jonathan Russell.' 
Adams was, by title, first in the commission; while Gallatin, 
with a great European reputation as a financial genius, 
was the man to whom all most willingly deferred. Clay, 
however, by his winning personality, secured the favor of 
the commissioners of his Britannic Majesty, and, at the 
same time, gained an influence over Bayard and Russell, 
which enabled him to dominate the commission. This 
fact was fortunate for the western country, whose interests 
Clay perfectly understood. It was of enormous impor- 

1 Act of February lo, 1816. See Smith's "Battle of New Orleans," p. 112. 

2 The treaty of peace had been signed at Ghent on December 24, 1814, the 
day after the first landing of the British army on the soil of Louisiana. 

3 Announcement in the "Lexington Reporter" of January 29, 1814; "Memoir 
of Henry Clay," p. 79. 



374 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

tance to Kentucky and the West, that the Mississippi, the 
whole course of whose waters now flowed through Amer- 
ican territory, should be kept under the exclusive control 
of the United States, but the only point upon which any 
serious difference of opinion arose, among the American 
Commissioners themselves, involved this very question. 
They were all cognizant of the fact that, by the third arti- 
cle of the treaty of 1783, certain rights of fishing and dry- 
ing fish within the British dominions in Canada, were guar- 
anteed to Americans; and that, as compensation for this 
valuable privilege, that same treaty provided, in the eighth 
article, that: "The navigation of the river Mississippi, from 
its source to the ocean, shall forever remain free and open 
to the subjects of Great Britain, and the citizens of the 
United States."^ They knew, also, that this same right 
had been confirmed to Great Britain, by the third article 
of Jay's treaty of 1794.^ And so, while discussing what 
details were to be insisted upon, in the negotiation with the 
representatives of Great Britain, the question naturally 
arose ^ as to whether an article should be inserted in the 
proposed treaty, renewing these old provisions. 

Adams, with the views of a native New Englander, was 
eager to insert such an article. He felt that the interests 
of American fishermen could not be otherwise secured; 
and, like Jay of old, saw no particular necessity for our 
catering to the interests of the Mississippi Valley. Clay, 
on the other hand, understood the importance of control 
of the Mississippi too well to allow it to be shared with 
England, in order to gain fishing rights for New England 

1 Text of treaty, Snow's "American Diplomacy," pp. 62 et seq. 

2 Text Snow's "American Diplomacy," p. 68. 

3 Introduced by Gallatin, Prentice's "Life of Henry Clay," p. io8; " Memoir 
of Henry Clay," p. 93. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR OF 1812 375 

fishermen. He urged, with justice, that circumstances had 
completely changed since Jay's treaty had been made. In 
1794, Spain had held Louisiana and the west bank of the 
Mississippi, and it was supposed that the British domin- 
ions touched upon its head waters. " But now," he argued, 
"the whole course of the Mississippi is known and ad- 
mitted to be within the well defined limits of the United 
States. There is no more reason for England to claim 
equal rights upon the Mississippi than for the United 
States to claim equal rights in the navigation of the 
Thames." ^ He further pointed out that the right to navi- 
gate the Mississippi would give Great Britain free access 
to the Indians of the Northwest, so lately pacified, and 
that the danger of her agents stirring them up to re- 
newed border warfare, was by no means remote. 

The contest growing excited, Gallatin found it no easy 
task to umpire this strife of sectional interests.^ At length, 
however, a vote was taken as to "whether the navigation 
of the Mississippi should be offered to Great Britain as an 
equivalent for the fisheries."^ Adams, Gallatin and Bay- 
ard favored the proposition, while Clay and Russell op- 
posed it. Clay, however, by his arguments and his final 
declaration, "that he would affix his signature to no 
Treaty, which should make to Great Britain the contem- 
plated concession," ^ at length secured the concurrence of 
Bayard; and Adams and Gallatin were overruled.-^ 

1 Sargent's "Clay," p. 18. 

2 Schouler, II, 435. 

3 Prentice's "Clay," p. 109. 

* Quoted by Sargent in his "Life of Clay," p. 19, and also by Prentice in his 
"Life of Clay," p. 109. 

5 See "Diplomatic notice proposed by Mr. Clay at Ghent," on pp. 41-44 of 
Colton's "Private Correspondence of Henry Clay." 



376 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

As a result of this victory, the treaty of Ghent omitted 
all reference to either question, and, upon the ratification 
of that instrument, the great "Father of Waters," the 
cause of so much anxiety, and the source of so many dark 
conspiracies, was finally liberated from all complicity with 
foreign courts, and became in law, and in fact, the sole 
and undisputed possession of the United States of America. 

Thus, under the skillful management of Henry Clay, 
the war of 1812 was made to conserve the interests of the 
great West, and with them also the highest interests of the 
young nation, which Clay rejoiced to serve.^ 

1 "To Henry Clay, as its chief mover and author," says John J. Crittenden, 
"belongs the statesman's portion of the glory of that war; and to the same 
Henry Clay, as one of the makers and signers of the treaty . . . belong the 
blessings of the peacemaker. His crown is made up of the jewels of peace and 
of war." Coleman's "Crittenden," II, p. 46. 



CHAPTER XII 

A CHAPTER IN FINANCIAL HISTORY 

The end of the war of 1812, marked an era in the in- 
dustrial history of the United States. The embargo and 
non-intercourse acts, followed by two years of war, had 
completely deranged the industrial system of the country, 
and had inaugurated the change which was to make of 
the New England states a manufacturing,^ instead of an 
almost purely commercial region. Then too, the suspen- 
sion of specie payment, which the Napoleonic wars neces- 
sitated in Europe, had raised the price of goods enor- 
mously; but, with Napoleon a prisoner, and peace 
restored, specie payment was again resumed, with a con- 
sequent lowering of prices,^ and an irresistible tendency 
to speculation and over-trading. An era of fictitious 
prosperity, such as usually follows a long suspension of 
specie payment, was ushered in, to meet which successfully 
required both acuteness and conservatism. Kentucky, un- 
fortunately, was blessed with neither the one nor the other. 
Her people were far from financial centers, and lacked 
that grasp of financial problems which only contact with 
affairs can give. Moreover, her experience in the handling 
of actual money had been unusually limited. In the early 
pioneer days, skins had served as her medium of ex- 
change, her merchants generally keeping their accounts 

1 Turner's " Rise of the New West," pp. 12-15, for figures. 
2Shaler, p. 174; Phelan's "Tennessee," p. 260. 

377 



^yS KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

in terms of beaver skins,^ and sometimes even issuing 
certificates of deposit of skins which, when properly en- 
dorsed, served as a species of bank note. The following 
is a specimen of this kind of paper money. 

" Know all men by these presents that Daniel Boone 
hath deposited 6 beaver skins in my Keep in good order 
and of the worth of six Shillings each skin, and I have took 
from them 6 Shillings for the keep of them, and when they 
be sold I will pay the balance of 30 Shillings for the whole 
lot to any person who presents this certificate and delivers 
it up to me at my Keep. Louisville, Falls of Ohio, May 20, 
1784. 

"John Sanders." ^ 

As the period of the hunter had given place to that of the 
agriculturalist, the practice of making exchanges in terms 
of tobacco had become general, assignable receipts for cer- 
tain quantities passing current, and performing many of 
the functions of the bank note of the older communities. 
Land warrants, too, had served a similar purpose, the 
purchaser depositing his money with the State treasurer, 
and receiving in return a warrant for a certain number of 
acres. 

As population increased and commerce began to as- 
sume real importance in the life of Kentucky, a new 
medium of exchange appeared, but one scarcely less primi- 
tive than those already mentioned. Tobacco gave place 
to coins, but coins of such varied types that their circulating 
value could be determined only by a very rough approxi- 

1 Duke's "History of the Bank of Kentucky," p. 9. 

2 Durrett MSS. 



A CHAPTER IN FINANCIAL HISTORY 379 

mation; and a pair of balances for weighing them was a 
necessary part of every mercantile establishment. 

When the purchase of Louisiana, in 1803, had given 
Kentucky the right to carry her goods untaxed to New Or- 
leans, or to distribute them at points along the Mississippi, 
trade had taken a marvelous bound forward. This had 
been speedily followed by the opening up of the once al- 
most impassable wilderness lying between Kentucky and 
the older States;^ and this in turn by the appearance of 
steamboats on the waters of the west,^ which cut down 
the cost of transportation about two-thirds, and reduced 
the time, required for a trip to New Orleans, from thirty 
or forty, to six or seven days.^ 

So extensive a trade, as was now opened to Kentucky, 
could not long be carried on without some attempt to secure 
a proper and uniform circulating medium, and, out of these 
conditions, had developed the first banking concern of the 
State, the so-called "Kentucky Insurance Company." 
This company had not been intended by the Legislature 
as a banking establishment,'^ its ostensible purpose being 
to make trade, with New Orleans and other distant points, 
more safe, by insuring cargoes against ordinary accidents 
and losses; but the promoters had arranged an elastic 
clause in their charter, the twentieth section of which con- 

1 By 18 1 2 Kentucky was sending east, over the mountains, 500,000 hogs 
annually; and the trade by water was proportionately large. Turner's "Rise of 
the New West," p. loi. 

2 Kentucky was the home and burial place of three of the earliest, successful 
experimenters in steam navigation, John Fitch, James Rumsey, and Edward 
West. Sketches of their activities and experiments, etc., Collins, II, p. 174. 

3 Annals of Congress, 17th Cong., Sess. 2, p. 407. 

* "An act to Incorporate the Kentucky Insurance Company," Decem- 
ber 16, 1802. The full text is given in Wm. Littell's "The Statute Law of 
Kentucky," III, pp. 25-31. 



380 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

tains these words: "And such of the notes as are payable 
to bearer, shall be negotiable and assignable by delivery 
only." 

In this clause, had been laid the foundation of banking 
in Kentucky; for the company had proceeded to make the 
freest use of the privileges of a bank of issue,^ and had 
soon "divided eight per cent profit for six months — a fact 
which drew upon it the horrific denunciation of being a 
'monied aristocracy,' and therefore to be put down." ^ 

The Kentucky Insurance Company, however, had not 
long been left to enjoy the monopoly of so rich a field. 
On December 27, 1806, a charter had been granted, creat- 
ing the Bank of Kentucky,^ with a capital stock fixed atone 
million dollars, half of which was reserved for the State; 
which latter was to choose annually the president and six 
of the twelve directors.^ The charter also contained the 
remarkable provision, that the State Legislature might, at 
any time, increase the number of directors from twelve to 

1 Durrett Collection for specimens of notes of the Kentucky Insurance Com- 
pany. The following is one specimen from that collection: 

"The President and Directors of the Kentucky Insurance Company promise 
to pay C. Vaness or bearer on demand one dollar." 
"Lexington, 16 June, 1816. 

"Wm. H. Richardson, Prest. 
" J. L. Martin, Cashr." 

2 Marshall, II, p. 374. Henry Clay's first nomination, as a candidate for the 
Kentucky Legislature, was due to the fact that he was opposed to a plan, then 
on foot, to repeal this charter, which had been granted until January i, 1818. 
Such a repeal, Clay insisted, would be in violation of the rights vested in the 
company by its charter, and would be unconstitutional. He was elected by a 
large majority, and, upon taking his seat, easily defeated the attempt to repeal 
the charter. "Memoir of Henry Clay," in "Life and Speeches," Anon., I, 
pp. 28-29. 

3 Usually distinguished as the "Old Bank of Kentucky." "An act to estab- 
lish a State Bank." Full text, Wm. Littell's "Statute Law of Kentucky," 
III, pp. 390-399. 

^ The other six were to be chosen by the stockholders. 



A CHAPTER IN FINANCIAL HISTORY 381 

twenty-four, thus insuring the permanent management of 
the bank by this body, which would be generally certain 
to know very little about its affairs, and to intervene for 
the worse in any critical moment. 

Such, then, was the condition in which Kentucky was 
forced to meet the extraordinary financial temptations, fol- 
lowing upon the resumption of specie payment, after the 
close of the war of 18 12. The hard times forced the Bank 
of Kentucky to suspend,^ and the Legislature, with in- 
excusable ignorance, proceeded to give it relief by allow- 
ing it to increase its capital stock to three million dollars.^ 
Moreover, that this new stock might be the more readily 
taken up, it prefaced the increase by an act authoriz- 
ing the trustees of educational institutions to sell their 
lands, and use the money for the purchase of bank stock. ^ 

These measures naturally failed to restore public confi- 
dence. Debtors found it impossible to get money with 
which to discharge their obligations; and creditors de- 
clined to accept the notes of the suspended bank. In 
1 8 15, matters reached a point where the Legislature again 
felt called upon to intervene, and again their interference 
proved the folly of subjecting banking operations to po- 
litical control. Any creditor, they declared, who shall 
"refuse to take pay for his debt, in the notes of the sus- 
pended bank," shall not collect his dues for one year. 

This piece of injustice was followed, in 181 7, by the 

1 A general suspension throughout the country, New England excepted, 
occurred about 1814. Phelan's "Tennessee," p. 260. 

2 "An act to increase the capital of the State Bank," approved February 8, 
1815. Littell's "Statutes," III, p. 281. 

3 "An act authorizing the sale of Seminary Lands and the investure of the 
proceeds in Bank Stock," approved January 26, 1815. Littell's "Statutes," III, 
pp. 163-164. 



382 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

legalizing of "an agreement between the Bank of Ken- 
tucky and its thirteen branches, to the effect that neither 
should be required to take the notes of the others." ^ In 
other words, private creditors must be satisfied to be paid 
in notes which were so worthless that the banks, which is- 
sued them, would not receive them again. ^ 

The natural effect of this was that the creditor class was 
largely bankrupt. The choice between taking bank notes, 
worth only half their enforced value, and waiting a year 
for any payment, was a severe test of solvency, and one 
which few could stand. Nor was the debtor in much better 
case, as the possibility of borrowing any more money, in 
the face of such laws, was very small. 

In the serious distress which prevailed, the people 
had recourse to the expedient, which, even yet, financial 
distress is likely to call forth, that of demanding "fiat 
money; " and the Kentucky Legislature was neither wise 
enough to resist the demand, nor experienced enough to 
foresee the results of acceding to it. It chartered forty in- 
dependent banks,^with an aggregate capital of ^8,520,000, 
and with the privilege of issuing notes, to an "amount 
equal to three times the amount of their capital stock, less 
their indebtedness." These notes, redeemable, not in 
specie, but in the notes of the Bank of Kentucky, which 
had, by this time, managed to resume specie payment, 
soon flooded the State, bringing v/ith them rash specula- 

1 Durrett's "Early Banking in Kentucky," in Kentucky Bankers' Associa- 
tion Proceedings of 1892, p, 41. 

2 Duke's "History of the Bank of Kentucky," p. 16. 

3 Act of January 26, 1818, printed among the "Acts Passed at the First 
Session of the 26th General Assembly for the Commonwealth of Kentucky." 
Frankfort. Printed by Kendall & Russells, Printers to the State, 1818. Dur- 
rett Collection. 



A CHAPTER IN FINANCIAL HISTORY 383 

tion and reckless expenditure. Men began to look upon 
banks as "institutions for making the poor rich," and to 
clamor for a share in the blessings which the United 
States bank was supposed to be showering upon the re- 
gions where its branches were established. In response 
to this demand, branches of that institution were set up 
at Lexington and Louisville, but their presence only 
served to increase the mania for borrowing and reckless 
speculation. "All hastened to get into debt," says Pro- 
fessor Sumner,^ "because to do so was not only the only 
way to get rich, but the only way to save one self from 
ruin." 

The reckoning came swiftly. One by one, the Forty 
Independent Banks — " The Forty Thieves," as they were 
popularly called — failed, being unable to pay their demand 
notes, and they loudly accused the Bank of the United 
States of being the cause of their ruin, thus drawing upon 
it the hatred which they themselves merited. They had 
over-issued, and their notes had found their way into the 
possession of the branches of the United States Bank. 
Their presentation was hailed as oppression; as the cul- 
mination of a deliberate plot to gain absolute control of 
the field. In June, 1819, Niles reported,^ "The whole 
State is in considerable commotion. The gross amount 
of debts due the banks is estimated at ten millions of 
dollars. . . . Several county meetings have been held. 
Their purpose is: i, a suspension of specie payments; 
2, more paper money; 3, an extra session of the Legisla- 
ture to pass some laws on this emergency." 

For a few months the old Bank of Kentucky continued 

1 Sumner's " Jackson," p. 155. 

2 16 Niles, p. 261. 



384 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

to maintain herself, but the pressure from the United 
States Bank, which held much of her paper, was too severe. 
On May 4, 1820, the stockholders voted to suspend; and 
the National Bank held the field without a rival. It was 
roundly cursed as a monster of wickedness, which had 
brought ruin upon the State, and wrecked the fortunes 
of her citizens for its own dishonest ends; the fact that, 
pleading exemption, it had refused to pay a tax of one 
hundred and twenty thousand dollars, which the Ken- 
tucky Legislature had imposed upon its two Kentucky 
branches,^ adding greatly to its unpopularity in the State. ^ 

To save Kentucky debtors from the clutches of this " mon- 
ster monopoly," the Legislature again interfered. It passed 
a law extending the power to replevy judgments from three 
to twelve months,^ thus encouraging the debtor to feel that 
the Legislature could further protect him from the con- 
sequences of his rashness, if men of the right type could 
be elected. The politicians at once saw the political power 
that lay in the campaign cry, " Relief; " and, as a result, 
a majority of the Legislature, after the elections of Au- 
gust, 1820, stood pledged to relief measures. 

As an initial step in their dangerous program, the new 
Legislature passed a bill providing a charter for the bank 



1 Collins, I, p. 29. The object of the tax, says Professor Sumner, was to 
drive the bank out of the State: Jackson, p. 166. 

2 This plea of exemption was sustained, a few months later, by the Supreme 
Court of the United States in McCulloch vs. Maryland (1819), 4 Wheaton, 
316. This decision declared that the States could not tax the bank. In his mes- 
sage of November 7, 1825 (text, 29 Niles, pp. 219 et seq.). Governor Desha de- 
clared that the Supreme Court had allied itself with the Bank of the United 
States to overthrow Kentucky sovereignty; and denounced the Court of Appeals 
of Kentucky for not sustaining the Kentucky law taxing the bank, instead of 
yielding to the Supreme Court decision above quoted. 

3 Collins, I, p. 29; Duke's "History of the Bank of Kentucky," p. 18. 



A CHAPTER IN FINANICAL HISTORY 385 

which Humphrey Marshall, with characteristic scorn, de- 
scribes as, "the paper bubble, called 'The Bank of the 
Commonwealth of Kentucky'; The People's Bank; God 
save it." ^ This governmental monstrosity was indeed a 
veritable paper mill, such as is often dreamed of to-day 
by those socialistic philosophers who believe that the gov- 
ernment can create money by the mere operation of its 
printing press.- Its sole business was to turn out money, 
which it was not required to redeem in specie.^ The 
value of this money rested upon public lands, and it was 
receivable for taxes and all public debts; but, in order 
to insure its being accepted also in payment of private 
debts, which was the chief cause of the creation of the 
bank, the law provided, that if a creditor refused to accept 
payment in this bank paper, the debtor could "replevy 
the debt for the space of two years." "* 

The object of this law was to enable debtors to pay 
their debts in money of low value, and to compel credi- 
tors to accept much less than was due them under their 
contracts. It was, therefore, manifestly contrary to the 
express wording of the Federal Constitution, which says 
(Art. I, Sec. 10), "No State shall . . . pass any . . . Law 
impairing the Obligation of Contracts. . . ." ^ 

1 Act of November 29, 1820. Marshall, II, p. 375. 

2 "Capital stock, three millions of dollars;" says Marshall, II, p. 375, "to 
be printed on slips of paper representing public faith, for its redemption." The 
only real capital of the bank was $7,000 appropriated by the Legislature for the 
purchase of an outfit for printing the notes. Turner's " Rise of the New West," 
p. 138. 

3 Battle (18S7 Ed.), p. 312; Sumner's "Jackson," p. 162. 

4 "The Patriot," March 13, 1826; Robertson's "Scrap. Book," p. 48. 

5 The constitutionality of the Bank of the Commonwealth was sustained by 
judicial recognitions of the Court of Appeals of Kentucky; by an express de- 
cision of Chief Justice Robertson, and the Judges- Underwood and Nicholas. 
It was also sustained by the Supreme Co^^t of the United States (Craig vs. 

Kentucky — 25 



3S6 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

The unhappy creditor thus found himself ground be- 
tween the upper and the nether millstones. If he declined 
to accept payment in the paper of the Bank of the Com- 
monwealth, worth only half its face value,^ he was to re- 
ceive nothing at all, for two years, and then face, perhaps, 
the same alternative. If he accepted the paper, he lost 
at least half the value of the debt.^ No wonder, then, that 
he raised an outcry at this wholesale public robbery, 
claiming that the Legislature had no constitutional right 
to pass a law which was retroactive in its operation, and 
contrary to the State Constitution, as well as that of the 
nation.^ 

No important case, except the Dartmouth College case,^ 
had as yet caused an official interpretation of the Con- 
tract Clause of the Federal Constitution, and the news 
of that famous case had not reached the courts of the 
West; ^ but, to the more conservative minds, the wording 
of the Constitution upon that subject was so clear as to 
require no judicial illumination. To the masses, how- 
ever, the question of constitutional interpretation was 
one which could be solved by political organization, and 

Missouri). The validity of the statutes extending replevins was still to be de- 
cided upon. "Sketch of the Court of Appeals," Collins, I, p. 495. 

1 By October, 1822, a specie dollar was worth $2.05 in notes of the Bank of 
the Commonwealth. 23 Niles, p. 96. 

2 "If a judgment creditor," says Judge Robertson ("Scrap Book," p. 48), 
"would endorse on his execution that he would take the paper of the said bank 
at par in satisfaction of his judgment, the debtor should be entitled to a replevin 
of only three months; but ... if such endorsement should not be made, the 
debtor might replevy for two years. ..." 

3 "Lexington Monitor," March 24, 1820. 
* 4 Wheaton, p. 518. 

5 Justice Harlan — Interview. The decision, Fletcher vs. Peck, had declared 
that Georgia could not cancel land grants, even when obtained by fraud; and 
the Dartmouth College case decision had declared that New Hampshire could 
not alter a charter which had been granted before the War of Independence. 



A CHAPTER IN FINANCIAL HISTORY 387 

they promptly arranged to defend the rehef laws, by 
banding themselves together into a political party called 
the "Relief party"; while the opponents of the laws, less 
numerous but more intelligent, also united, calling them- 
selves the "Anti-Relief party." ^ 

At this time, there were, practically speaking, no oppos- 
ing political parties in national politics. The Federalists 
had breathed their last in the operations of the Hartford 
Convention, and James Monroe had encountered no 
serious opposition in the election of 18 16; ^ while, in 1820, 
the lack of national parties was still more emphasized by 
the fact that Monroe received all the electoral votes cast 
for President, save one.^ It was a period, therefore, when 
one might expect a new division of parties, and, in Ken- 
tucky, that division grew out of the question as to whether 
the relief laws should stand, or should be considered as 
unconstitutional, null and void. 

This question was not long in finding its way into the 
Kentucky courts. Judge Clark of Clark County and 
Judge Blair of Fayette County both registered the opinion 
that the Replevin laws were in plain violation of both the 
State and the Federal Constitutions,^ and, while the Relief 

1 Geo. Robertson's "Scrap Book," p. 49. 

^ In this election Monroe, the Democratic candidate, received 183 electoral 
votes against 34 of his Federalist opponent, Rufus King of New York. Schouler, 
III, p. 460. 

^ That of a New Hampshire elector who was determined that Washington 
should remain the only President ever chosen by a unanimous vote. 

* "Patriot," March 13, 1826, for review of case; Collins, I, pp. 30, 320; 
II, pp. 132-133; 23 Niles (Supp. to vol. 22), pp. 153 et seq., for Clark's opinion 
and various documents bearing on the case. "Though it is true that this case 
is immediately concerning the interests of that State only," comments the 
editor, "it is of so much importance to the general principles it embraces, as to 
bring it home to the bosoms of all. It is for this reason we allot so much space 
to it." The case was Williams vs. Blair, etc. 



388 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

party was lashing itself into a fury over this " treachery to 
the people's interests," the Court of Appeals found itself 
face to face with the same question. Its opinion ^ was 
unanimous; that, "as the Legislature had attempted to 
make the extension of replevin retroactive, its acts were 
interdicted by both the Constitution of the State and of 
the Union." ^ 

Under normal conditions, these decisions would have 
settled the question, but the subject had ceased to be a 
mere question of legal interpretation. In it the radical 
leaders saw an important political issue. "Resistance to 
the sovereign will," roared the Relief orators, "is tyranny, 
and will not be endured." They then turned to the prob- 
lem of how to enforce that "sovereign will," in defiance 
of the fiat of "corrupt courts of law," and wisely decided 
that the first step must be the capture of the State Gov- 
ernment in the coming gubernatorial election. 

The cry of "Relief for the debtor" proved most effect- 
ive, and, when the election was held (August 7, 1824),^ 
the Relief party found its success greater than its fondest 
hope had dared to picture it. General Joseph Desha, 
their candidate for governor, was elected by a majority of 
over fifteen thousand, and, with him, an overwhelming ma- 
jority of Relief members for each House in the State Legis- 
lature. 

This triumph of radicalism in Kentucky was one of 

1 Opinion delivered October 8, 1823, by Chief Justice Boyle, in case of Blair 
vs. Williams. Separate opinions by Wm. Owsley and Benj. Mills, on Octo- 
ber II, 1823, in case of Lapsley vs. Brasher & Co. Robertson's "Scrap Book," 
pp. 49-74, gives a careful examination of the decision. See also Collins, I, 
pp. 320, 495. 

2 Robertson's "Scrap Book," p. 48. Outline of the opinion, Collins, I, 
pp. 495-496- 

3 Collins, I, p. 31; Sumner's " Jackson," p. 164. 



A CHAPTER IN FINANCIAL HISTORY 389 

the straws indicating the course of the wind in the national 
campaign of 1824, which was now at its height. In the 
peaceful days of 1822, when every man was merely a demo- 
crat, the Kentucky Legislature, at a joint meeting of both 
Houses,^ had unanimously declared Henry Clay the fittest 
person to succeed James Monroe,^ and a committee had 
been appointed to correspond with other likely States, 
with a view to securing a similar endorsement.^ Their 
effort had been successful, and Louisiana, Missouri, Illi- 
nois and Ohio, through their Legislatures, had formally 
announced Clay as their candidate,'* a man committed to a 
protective tariff and internal improvements at national cost. 
Meanwhile, three other men, of undoubted ability, had 
been preparing to capture the office of president, all of 
them, like Clay himself, members of the party of James 
Monroe. John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, was a 
strong candidate, by virtue both of his eminent public 
services, and of his position, which had always been re- 
garded as the stepping stone to the presidency. Andrew 
Jackson's aspirations were more ridiculed than feared by 
the politicians, who fancied his candidacy merely a new 
and aggravated expression of egotism; while William H. 
Crawford of Georgia, Secretary of the Treasury, was en- 
couraged to hope that his masterly knowledge of machine 
politics might secure him the coveted position. 

1 Frankfort, November i8, 1822. Robertson's "Scrap Book," p. 147; 
Sargent's "Clay," p. 35. 

2 This was the first time Henry Clay was presented as a candidate for the 
presidency. He was then in his forty-sixth year. Robertson's "Scrap Book," 
p. 147. 

3 Robertson's "Scrap Book," pp. 148-149, gives the address of this com- 
mittee to the Ohio representatives, urging the reasons why the West should sup- 
port Clay. 

* Prentice's "Clay," p. 223. 



390 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

Between Clay and Jackson, there existed a feud of 
long standing, which had arisen out of the famous Sem- 
inole debates of 1 8 19. In 1818 Jackson had been ordered 
by Calhoun, Monroe's Secretary of War, to put an end to 
the outrages which the Seminole Indians, urged on by 
certain British subjects resident in Florida, had for years 
been committing along the southern frontier. He was 
specifically commanded to respect the sovereignty of Spain 
in the peninsula, and on no account to molest a Spanish 
post. Jackson had raised volunteers in Georgia, and, plac- 
ing himself at their head, had marched boldly into Florida, 
driving the Indians before him. The fugitives had taken 
refuge in the Spanish posts, which Jackson had promptly 
seized and garrisoned with his own men, contrary to 
the specific terms of his marching orders. It was a glorious 
campaign, but it was as high-handed a piece of insubor- 
dination as our history records, and Clay, with charac- 
teristic impetuosity, had headed a movement to censure 
Jackson for his conduct.^ To a man of the latter's imperi- 
ous disposition, this was a personal insult, and, to the last 
day of his life, he hated Clay, and all who had been associ- 
ated with him in this movement, with a bitterness which 
nothing could assuage. It was out of this personal hos- 
tility between the two great leaders, that a new division of 
national parties was soon to emerge.^ 

In the election of 1824, the Kentucky people were called 
to decide between these four candidates, and, as the na- 
tional questions, involved in the presidential election, did 

1 "Memoir of Henry Clay," p. 120. 

2 The Jacksonites, and the anti- Jacksonites, as they were first called; then 
the Democratic Republicans and the National Republicans; and finally, after 
Clay's genius for organization had molded the opposition into a semblance of 
unity, the Democrats and the Whigs. See Schouler, III, p. 90. 



A CHAPTER IN FINANCIAL HISTORY 391 

not touch the local issue of relief or anti-relief, all their 
electoral votes were given to Henry Clay. In addition to 
these fourteen, however, Clay received only tv/enty-three 
votes, a total too small to entitle his name to consideration 
at the hands of the National House of Representatives, to 
whom the choice of a president was referred, no one of the 
candidates having received a majority.^ 

In spite of his defeat. Clay found himself in a position of 
remarkable power, as he could control enough votes in the 
House to assign the presidency to any one of his three 
rivals whom he should choose.^ If the will of the people 
were to be carried out, disregarding the fact that it had not 
been expressed by a legally binding majority, he was in 
duty bound to support his bitter personal and political 
enemy, Andrew Jackson, who had received a plurality of 
the electoral vote, and the highest popular vote.^ This 
was the course which the Kentucky Legislature, now un- 
der the influence of the Relief party, urged upon its 
representatives."* But Clay saw no such duty in his 
present position. He believed that the wording of the 
Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution gave Congress 

1 Jackson had received 99 electoral votes; Adams, 84; Crawford, 41; and 
Clay, 37. Jackson received more electoral votes than any other candidate, as 
well as the greatest popular vote, and his friends at once declared him the evi- 
dent choice of the nation. Schouler, III, p. 325; "Life and Speeches of Henry 
Clay," Anon., I, p. 133; Sargent's "Clay," p. 37. 

2 Schouler, III, p. 325; Turner, p. 260; Sargent's "Clay," p. 35. 

3 This would have meant practically that a mere plurality was competent to 
elect a president. But the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution declares: 
"The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be Presi- 
dent, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed: 
and if no person have such majority . . . the House of Representatives shall 
choose. ..." 

4 Adams's "Memoirs," VI, p. 446; Prentice's "Clay," p. 231; Collins, I, 
p. 31. Request to vote for Jackson sent by Kentucky Legislature on Janu- 
ary II, 1825. 



392 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

absolute freedom of choice as between the three names 
referred to them and, in defiance of the express instruc- 
tions of Kentucky, he threw his influence for John Quincy 
Adams, thus securing his election. 

At the news, the rage of the Relief party knew no 
bounds. Indignation meetings were held in various towns 
throughout the State: the sentiment, "the will of the 
sovereign people, the supreme law," was bellowed from 
every platform, and effigies of the man who had dared 
to defy It, was brought out and burned to ashes. ^ The 
crowds then dispersed, rousing the echoes, as they rode 
homeward, with the cry of, "Relief for the debtor." 

But this excitement was as nothing compared to the 
roar that greeted the announcement of Clay's having ac- 
cepted the portfolio of State, under the administration 
which he had thus created. The charge of "bargain and 
corruption," which Jackson ungenerously countenanced, 
began its strange career, and, all unfounded as we now 
know it to have been, it never afterward ceased to im- 
pede the progress of the " Great Commoner," toward the 
goal of his ambitions. 

"The Spirit of '76," the official organ of the Anti- 
Relief party in Kentucky, published elaborate refutations 
of the slander, and Clay and Adams ^ provided sufficient 
evidence to disprove it three times over; but Jackson, in 
impassioned letters, designed for the public eye, expressed 

1 Collins, I, p. 32. 

2 Speaking at Maysville, Ky., on November 14, 1844, Mr. Adams said: 
"The charges ... I have denied before the whole country. And I here 
reiterate and reaffirm that denial; and, as I expect shortly to appear before my 
God to ansvper for the conduct of my whole life, should those charges have found 
their way to the Throne of Eternal Justice, I will, in the presence of Omnipo- 
tence, pronounce them false." See also Seward's "Life of John Quincy 
Adams/' chap. VIII. 



A CHAPTER IN FINANCIAL HISTORY 393 

his faith in the story, and his party managers made of it 
a permanent poHtical asset. 

A single stanza, from a jingle published in one of the 
local papers, strikes the heart of the matter, but it ap- 
pealed only to the opponents of Jackson: 

"O! Jackson Hick'ry Joe Jack 
Your letter I have seen; 
And its contents are nothing else 
But jealousy and spleen, 
'Gainst Adams and his friends Jack, 
As we full well do know; 
Because you was not chosen Jack, 
O! Jackson Jack my Joe." 

In the meantime, the Kentucky Legislature had been 
making use of its Relief majorities to remove the judges 
of the Court of Appeals, who had dared to resist public 
opinion in defence of the Federal Constitution. The at- 
tempt had first been made by the constitutional means of 
*'an address" to the governor;^ but, this having failed, for 
lack of the constitutional two-thirds majority,^ an act was 
passed^ aboHshing the Old Court, and providing for the 
organization of a new one, to be composed of judges 
pledged to support the Replevin laws. It was a dastardly 

1 Text of resolutions for removal, "Patriot," March 13, 1826, together with 
an historical summary of the case. The vote, 61 to 36, showed the strength of the 
Relief party after the elections of 1824. For details of a similar case in Rhode 
Island, in 1786, see Fiske's "Critical Period," pp. 174-176. To this, and 
similar cases of the year 1786, Mr. Fiske traces the origin of the Contract Clause 
of the Federal Constitution. 

2 Collins, I, p. 321. 

3 December g, 1824. Robertson's "Scrap Book," p. 75. A bare majority 
suflficed for passing this act. 



394 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

attempt to subvert the intent of law, and bring the judiciary 
under the controlling power of the Legislature, nor was its 
real meaning disguised by calling it "an act reorganizing 
the Court of Appeals." ^ 

The New Court was organized; ^ but the judges of the 
Old Court stoutly denied the constitutionality of the reor- 
ganizing act, and continued to try such cases as were 
brought before them. They claimed to be still the legally 
constituted Court of Appeals of Kentucky, and the majority 
of the attorneys in the State recognized their claim. Some, 
however, adhered to the New Court, and others were quite 
unable to decide between them. It was a crisis which 
might easily have given rise to civil war; but, instead, it 
became the political question of the hour, and in place 
of the former party names. Relief and Anti-Relief, now 
appeared the names. New Court party and Old Court 
party. The situation was peculiar; for the question at the 
bottom of an excitement purely local was itself decidedly 
national in character, viz: "Shall the people interpret the 
Federal Constitution for themselves, or must they accept 
the interpretation set upon it by their courts V The Old 
Court of Appeals had declared the "Replevin laws" con- 
trary to the Federal Constitution; but the majority of the 
voters in the State had, by the election of Relief candi- 
dates, declared them constitutional. 



1 To abolish any one of the three coordinate branches of the Government 
was evidently beyond the powers of either or both of the other two. To abolish 
any one of them required an amendment, passed in due constitutional form; 
but this the Relief majority in the Legislature knew to be impossible. See 
"Spirit of '76," March 17, 1826. It passed the House, after fierce debate, on 
December 24, 1824. Acts of 33d General Assembly of Kentucky, pp. 44-56; 
Robertson's "Scrap Book," p. 75. 

2 Personnel of New Court, etc. Collins, I, pp. 322, 496. 



A CHAPTER IN FINANCIAL HISTORY 395 

The leaders of the Old Court party wisely decided to 
make the campaign of 1825 a campaign of education.^ 
Their orators and writers spared no pains to set forth the 
dangers incident to the policy of subjecting the courts to 
the domination of the State Legislature, and the result was 
a sweeping victory. Most of the seats in contest were cap- 
tured by Old Court candidates, and they secured complete 
control of the House. The Senate, however, remained 
equally divided, as only one-third of its seats had been in- 
volved in the election; ^ but the vote of the presiding officer, 
Lieutenant Governor Robert B. M'Afee, placed it under 
the control of the New Court party. Every effort, there- 
fore, to repeal the reorganizing act was in vain; and the 
Old Court party again applied itself to the task of educat- 
ing the people, that the Senate also might be regenerated 
in the election of 1826. 

That election was preceded by a campaign of intense 
bitterness, a war to the death; but the Old Court was again 
victorious.^ The Senate, as well as the House, now came 
under their control, and they promptly declared ^ the hated 
reorganizing act, unconstitutional, null and void. The 
heroic judges of the Old Court were voted full salary for 
the period during which they had been illegally deprived 

1 Text of Protest (December, 1824), placing the cause of the Old Court 
before the people in a clear statement of the issues involved. Robertson's 
"Scrap Book," pp. 92-94; also "Spirit of '76," for March 17, 1826, where it 
was reprinted after the campaign. 

2 Collins, I, p. 497. 

3 In Robertson's "Scrap Book," pp. 97-137, we have a collection of the 
articles written during this campaign. They surpass in bitterness even the 
famous newspaper war of Freneau and Fenno during Washington's second ad- 
ministration. 

* Act of December 30, 1826, "An act to remove the unconstitutional ob- 
structions which have been thrown in the way of the Court of Appeals." Collins, 
I, p. 497; and I, p. 33. 



396 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

of their offices,^ and the fiercest pohtical conflict, which has 
ever occurred in Kentucky, was terminated without blood- 
shed. The Old and the New Court parties gradually be- 
came absorbed in the new national parties which were 
taking shape, the former following Henry Clay into the 
ranks of the National Republicans, later to become the 
Whigs; while the latter sought the shelter of the Jack- 
sonian democracy. But, in spite of the recent victory of 
the conservative element in Kentucky, it soon became ap- 
parent that the Jacksonian leadership was restoring the 
radical party to its position of control in that State, Adams 
being found a heavy burden for Clay's Kentucky friends 
to carry. There was little surprise felt, therefore, when, in 
the presidential election of 1828, Kentucky gave her four- 
teen electoral votes to Jackson and Calhoun. 

Although Clay was not ^ personally concerned in this 
election, he felt deeply the humiliation of seeing his own 
State marshalled in the ranks of his victorious enemy; 
and at once began organizing his defeated party for the 
great battle of 1832, when it was evident that he himself 
would be pitted against Jackson for the presidency. He 
retired to his country home on the outskirts of Lexington, 
where, after enjoying the prolonged ovation which there 
always awaited him, he busied himself with the duties 
of his estate, keeping a keenly critical eye on the new 
administration, and, at intervals, exposing its failures in 
popular addresses. The plan of his friends was to keep 
him in retirement for a couple of years, and then to send 



1 Collins, I, p. 322. 

2 If Clay had been the candidate chosen to oppose Jackson in this election, 
it is likely that Jackson would have sustained a second defeat, not in Kentucky 
alone, but in the nation. It was Clay's golden opportunity. 



A CHAPTER IN FINANCIAL HISTORY 397 

him to the United States Senate, where his campaign was 
to be opened.^ 

The pohtical events of Jackson's first term were not 
such as to endear him to the hearts of the Kentuckians.^ 
If they had doubted, before his election, what his views 
would be, they were soon enlightened. The United States 
Bank by this time completely occupied the field in Ken- 
tucky. The "Forty Thieves" were gone, the old Bank 
of Kentucky had wound up its affairs, and the Bank of 
the Commonwealth had run its mad course and gone into 
liquidation, leaving wrecked fortunes behind it. Six hun- 
dred thousand dollars, says Professor Sumner,^ "fairly 
represents the net swindle which the relief system perpe- 
trated on its dupes, to say nothing of its effects on cred- 
itors and on the general prosperity of the State." ■* 

Under the beneficent influence of the United States 
Bank, the people were beginning to experience, for the 
first time, the blessings of a really good currency, while 
the old cry of the Relief Party, that the bank was a 
corrupt monopoly, aiming to destroy the sovereignty of 
the States, had subsided. Great was the consternation, 
therefore, when Jackson took up the " Kentucky relief 
notion of the bank in its extreme and most malignant 
form." ^ It is not known that he felt any hostility toward 

1 Schouler, III, p. 465. 

2 His appointment of Wm. T. Barry of Kentucky as Postmaster-General 
was not a popular choice in Kentucky, for Barry had been a Clay man in 1824, 
and had later "deserted to the enemy." Jackson also offended Kentucky by 
recalling General Harrison from his post as Minister to Columbia, on account 
of his friendship for Clay. Schouler, III, p. 455. 

3 Jackson, p. 173. 

* The charter of the Bank of the Commonwealth was to expire by limitation 
in 1841, but by 1830 it had ceased to do business as a bank. Duke's "History 
of the Bank of Kentucky," p. 21. 

5 Sumner's " Jackson," p. 277. 



398 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

the bank when he came to Washington for his inauguration, 
but, before his first message was sent to Congress, he had 
decided to make war upon it. In bringing him to this 
decision, says Professor Sumner,^ "the ultimate agents 
were Amos Kendall, who brought the Kentucky relief ele- 
ment, . . . Isaac Hill . . . and Blair, who was stronger 
than either." ^ Kendall, fresh from Kentucky, had con- 
vinced Jackson that bank officers, in that State, had used 
money for carrying the State elections of 1825, when the 
fight between the Old and the New Courts had been at its 
height. Blair, who had been clerk of the New Court of 
Kentucky,^ and had lost his position by the repeal of the 
reorganizing act, had been brought to Washington, at 
Kendall's suggestion, to play the part of political editor 
to Jackson's administration. He had held the position 
of President of the Bank of the Commonwealth of Ken- 
tucky, and was deeply in debt to the Bank of the United 
States.^ It is not astonishing, therefore, that he joined 
Kendall in turning the President against that institution, 
and in bringing him to see it as the Relief Party of Ken- 
tucky had seen it, in the days of its conflict with the Bank 
of the Commonwealth. 

But, although Jackson's denunciation of the bank en- 
dangered the basis of Kentucky prosperity, another of 
his views was even more unpopular in the State — his hos- 
tile attitude toward internal improvements at national cost. 
The first bill sent to him, which involved this question, 

1 Jackson, pp. 278-279. 

2 Both Kendall and Blair had formerly been ardent Clay men but "had been 
carried by Kentucky bank politics into the Jackson party." Schouler, III, 
p. 502. 

3 Collins, I, pp. 32, 33, 322, 496. 

* Kendall's "Autobiography," p. 372. 



A CHAPTER IN FINANCIAL HISTORY 399 

authorized the Secretary of the Treasury, on behalf of 
the Federal Government, to subscribe for fifteen hundred 
shares of the capital stock of a Kentucky corporation, 
the Maysville, Washington, Paris and Lexington Turn- 
pike Road Company,^ thus contemplating the appropria- 
tion of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars of national 
money for a purpose purely local in character. Not only 
was it the darling project of the strongest Jackson district 
in Kentucky, but it was regarded as a sort of test case. 
A veto of this bill would destroy all hope of securing 
national aid, in internal improvements for Kentucky, and 
would mean, also, a death to Jackson enthusiasm in the 
region afi^ected. But these facts had no weight with Jack- 
son. He returned the bill to Congress with his veto,^ thus 
giving to the Maysville turnpike project a fame as "broad 
as the Union," and dashing the hopes of hundreds of other 
districts which were waiting with similar proposals.^ 

With reference to the protective tariflF, Jackson was more 
cautious, as he preferred to remain noncommittal until 
after the election of 1832; ^ but this course was denied 
him, as Clay soon found himself in a position to force this 
issue, which he hoped would aid in securing the defeat of 
his enemy. In November, 183 1, according to the plan 
already mentioned, Clay was elected to the United States 

1 Collins, I, p. 539, gives analysis of vote. 

2 Veto message, Richardson's "Messages and Papers of the Presidents," 
II, pp. 483-494- 

3 Collins, I, pp. 36, 540. A bill for the Louisville canal was also presented 
to Jackson, but he disposed of it by means of the so-called "pocket veto." 
Ibid., p. 494, and Sumner's "Jackson," p. 235. 

4 Schouler, III, pp. 481-482. Kentucky wanted high duties on wool, iron, 
hemp, molasses, etc., their raw products, and on whiskey, which they manu- 
factured; but low duties on woolen and cotton fabrics. Sumner's "Jackson," 
p. 244; Schouler, IV, p. 59. 



400 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

Senate, and, upon arriving at Washington, found the po- 
sition of organizer and leader of the anti-Jackson forces 
of both Houses awaiting him. While busying himself 
with the task of trying to form a compact party out of 
factions having little in common, but a bitter hatred of 
Jackson, he received formal notification that the National 
Republicans had nominated him for the presidency.^ 

Clay's position, and that of his party, was definite. 
They favored the recharter of the National Bank, a sys- 
tem of protective tariff duties and internal improvements 
at national cost. To such a program they could not hope 
to hold the Calhoun wing of the opposition, but they 
might hope to win, without their aid, if only Jackson 
could be forced to take as definite a position upon the 
tariff question, as he had already taken upon the bank 
and internal improvements. Accordingly, in July, 1832, 
a bill was passed and sent to the President, reducing the 
revenue, but retaining, in distinct form, the principle of a 
protective tariff. ^ 

At the same moment, Jackson held in his hand another 
Clay bill, providing for the recharter of the National Bank.^ 
There was no immediate necessity for a recharter at this 
time, as the existing charter was not to expire until 1836, 
but Clay felt it to be good generalship to force the tariff 
question and the bank question together, in order to 
weaken the Jackson party in the coming election. 

Finding himself facing a political campaign with the 

1 Baltimore, December 12, 1831. 

2 Parton's "Jackson," III, p. 451. It went to the President, July 9; signed 
and returned July 14, 1832. 

3 Sent to President, July 4; vetoed July 10, 1832. Text of veto message, 
Richardson's "Messages and Papers," II, pp. 576 et seq. Full details, Benton's 
"Thirty Years' View," I, pp. 243 et seq. 



A CHAPTER IN FINANCIAL HISTORY 401 

necessity of deciding two such questions, each of which was 
certain to make powerful enemies for his party, Jackson 
met the issues squarely. The bank he had openly threat- 
ened and denounced as a corrupt monopoly, and he was 
willing to take the consequences of putting an end to its 
existence. He therefore vetoed the bill for its recharter, 
and returned it to Congress with his objections. On the 
subject of the tariff, however, he had never expressed 
such strong opinions, and, although Clay had drawn the 
bill, he deemed it wise to accept it. It was accordingly 
signed and returned to Congress.^ 

To attempt to carry the bank bill over the veto was 
useless, and all the arts of politics were now put into 
operation to convince the people of the ruinous results 
of the failure of the bill for a recharter, but without avail. 
In the campaign of 1832, Clay was hopelessly defeated.^ 

The attempt to corner Jackson had not profited the 
opposition, and it soon became evident that it had en- 
dangered the Union itself. South Carolina, regarding the 
passage of Clay's tariff bill, followed by the reelection of 
the President who had signed it, as evidence that protection 
was now the settled policy of the nation, passed (Novem- 
ber 24, 1832) the ordinance of nullification,^ declaring the 
tariff laws of 1828 and 1832, void and of no force within 
her territory. This was the first explicit application of the 
principles announced in Jefferson's draft of the Kentucky 
Resolutions of 1798, the test case as to whether a single 
State may nullify and set at defiance a Federal law."* 

1 Schouler, IV, p. 69. 

2 In 1828 Jackson had a majority of 7,934 in Kentucky. In 1832 Clay 
carried the State by a majority of 7,324. Collins, I, pp. 35, 37. 

3 Benton, I, pp. 297-298, text. 

* On September 7, 1831, John Quincy Adams had written Clay a letter, 
Kentucky — 26 



402 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

In this important crisis, Jackson showed himself a 
national man. His message of December 4,^ it is true, 
refers, with most uncharacteristic mildness, to the "op- 
position to the revenue laws . . . which threatens to 
thwart their execution," but, in his proclamation, issued 
six days later,^ he announced a firm "determination to 
execute the laws, to preserve the Union ... to arrest, 
if possible, by moderate, but firm measures, the neces- 
sity of a recourse to force; and if," he adds, "it be the 
will of Heaven that the recurrence of its primeval curse 
on man for the shedding of a brother's blood should fall 
upon our land, that it be not called down by any offensive 
act on the part of the United States." The views expressed 
in this document are as purely national as those of Web- 
ster in his "Reply to Hayne." "One short week," wrote 
Henry Clay, "produced the message and the proclama- 
tion — the former ultra on the side of State-rights, the 
latter ultra on the side of consolidation." ^ 

Upon the face of the two documents, this might be 
considered a just criticism, but, before the message had 
been sent to Congress, Jackson had arranged for the 
vigorous enforcement of the lavN^s in South Carolina. As 
early as November 6th, he had ordered the collector of 



expressing in detail his views concerning nullification. "Among the States," 
he says, "which I have charged with directly asserting, or imprudently giving 
countenance to it is your beloved State of Kentucky, as well as my own Massa- 
chusetts. I believe we are indebted to Kentucky for the word. ..." In 
this Mr. Adams was mistaken, as Jefferson's draft had furnished "the word." 
Colton's "Private Correspondence of Henry Clay," pp. 31 1-3 14, for full text. 

1 Text, Richardson's "Messages and Papers," II, 591 et seq. 

2 Proclamation of December 10, 1832. Text, Benton's "Thirty Years' 
View," I, 299-303. 

3 Clay to Francis Brooke, Washington, December 12, 1832. "Private 
Correspondence of Henry Clay," Colton, p. 345. 



A CHAPTER IN FINANCIAL HISTORY 403 

the port of Charleston to "resort to all the means pro- 
vided by the laws ... to counteract the measures which 
may be adopted to give effect" to the ordinance of nulli- 
fication, which is likely to be adopted,^ and, a few days 
later. General Scott had been ordered to Charleston. 

Clay was doubtless ignorant of these orders, which 
certainly were not those of a man "ultra on the side of 
State-rights," but his criticism of Jackson's supposed 
change of position is strange, in view of what he himself 
proceeded to do, by way of meeting the crisis. Fearful lest 
the defiance of South Carolina should result in placing 
war powers in Jackson's hands, Clay, the father of the 
American system, yielded to a suggestion of Ex-Governor 
Letcher of Kentucky,^ and entered into a compromise 
with Calhoun, the champion of absolute free trade. On 
February 12, 1833, he offered in the Senate a tariff bill ^ 
for scaling down the duties every two years, until, by the 
end of June, 1842, they should reach a basis of twenty- 
five per cent or lower. 

This compromise measure, once launched, attracted 
much hostile criticism, and justly so. Webster objected 
to it on the ground that, " it would be yielding great prin- 
ciples to faction, and that the time had come to test the 
strength of the constitution." But Claj^ carried it through, 
and the circumstances of its final triumph show his skill 
as a parliamentary tactician. Being a revenue bill, it 
could not constitutionally emanate from the Senate, so use 

1 Text of these orders, Parton's " Jackson," III, pp. 460-461. 

2 Now a member of the National House of Representatives. Details of the 
conversation in which the compromise idea originated. Benton's "Thirty 
Years' View," I, pp. 342-343. 

3 Full details of bill, etc., Benton's "Thirty Years' View," I, pp. 313-330; 
Parton's "Jackson," III, p. 477. 



404 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

was made of the so-called Verplanck bill, an administra- 
tion measure for tarijflp revision, which had been before 
the House since December 27, 1832.^ Late in the after- 
noon of February 25, 1833, says Parton,^ "Mr. Letcher of 
Kentucky, a fast friend of Mr. Clay, rose in his place [in 
the House of Representatives], and moved to strike out 
the whole Verplanck bill — every word excepting the enact- 
ing clause — and insert, in lieu of it, a bill offered in the 
Senate by Mr. Clay, since called 'The Compromise.' " 
It was done, and the bill, thus strangely amended, passed 
the House, by a vote of one hundred and nineteen to 
eighty-five. This settled the immediate dispute, and 
South Carolina repealed her ordinance of nullification; 
but, before the final conclusion of this compromise, which 
Clay in his latter years bemoaned as one of the greatest 
blunders of his public life, the Kentucky Legislature, 
chafing under the charge that Kentucky had paved the 
way for South Carolina's position, issued a statement 
strongly condemning the nullification theory, and express- 
ing unqualified attachment to the Union. ^ 

The South Carolina affair thus disposed of, Jackson 
turned to the task of carrying out the people's verdict 
against the National Bank, and, after several experi- 
ments, secured, in Roger B, Taney, a Secretary of the 
Treasury who would strike the fatal blow. On Septem- 
ber 22, 1 833,^ Taney issued his famous order, stopping gov- 

1 Details, Schurz's "Clay," pp. 8-9. 

2 " Jackson," III, p. 481. 

3 February 2, 1833. Collins, I, p. 37. The general tendency, during this 
entire controversy, was to treat the Virginia Resolutions of 1798, instead of 
the Jefferson draft which served as the original text for both Kentucky and 
Virginia, as the direct antecedent of Calhoun's theories. 

* Full details, documents, etc., relative to Removal question, Benton's 
"Thirty Years' View," I, pp. 373-379; Parton's "Jackson," III, pp. 493 et seq. 



A CHAPTER IN FINANCIAL HISTORY 405 

ernmental deposits in the National Bank, and directing 
that the sum already on deposit be drawn upon until ex- 
hausted.^ This meant the end of the National Bank, for 
the fierce opposition of Clay, Webster and Calhoun com- 
bined, was unable to force a reconsideration upon Jack- 
son. ^ 

Almost at once there resulted a relapse toward fiat 
money throughout the Union. State banks sprang up 
like Jonah's gourd, ^ and poured forth in ever increasing 
streams, says Bolles, "those spurious issues of paper 
money — those pictured shadows that bewildered the brain, 
intoxicated the hearts of the people, and drove them into 
the maddest schemes of speculation and extravagance." ^ 
Under their influence trade went mad. The prices of all 
commodities rose prodigiously,^ in itself a sure sign of 
dangerous inflation. Throughout the entire country 
schemes of internal improvement upon a gigantic scale 
were entered upon, while private speculation ran riot. 
The history of one State was the history of all; projects 
for canals, railroads and turnpikes, quite beyond the de- 
mands of commerce, excited all communities, while little 
serious attention was given to the final reckoning which 
was sure to follow. 



1 "A few only — a fraction of the cabinet and some friends — concurred 
heartily in the act: Mr. Taney, . . . Mr. Kendall, Mr. Francis P. Blair . . . 
and some few others," says Parton (Jackson, III, 374). This shows that 
the principles of the New Court party of Kentucky was still deeply influencing 
the current of national history. 

2 Bolles' "Financial History of the United States," I, p. 345. 

3 Statistics showing sudden growth of State banks under these conditions, 
Schurz's "Clay," II, p. 116. 

4 Bolles' "Financial History of the United States," I, p. 347. 

5 Wilson, IV, pp. 66-67, foi' description of the process. Also Collins, I, 
P- 325. 



4o6 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

While business was thus abnormally stimulated, the 
Secretary of the Treasury announced that the Govern- 
ment was entirely out of debt and that a surplus was 
mounting up, which could not be prevented, as the tariff 
revenues were derived from the Compromise Tariff law 
which none dared alter. In order, therefore, to reduce 
this surplus, Congress ordered that all surplus funds, above 
five million dollars, should be apportioned among the 
States as loans without interest. This of course served 
to drive the States still deeper into plans for internal im- 
provements. The banks were all soon far over the line 
of safety, and trade was dashing along simply upon pub- 
lic confidence. The crisis came when this confidence was 
suddenly disturbed by a command, issued July ii, 1836, 
that government land agents should accept only gold and 
silver in payment for public lands. 

At this critical point, the campaign of 1836 opened, and 
it is proof of Jackson's resistless popularity that, in spite 
of his high-handed conduct in removing the deposits, 
contrary to the wishes of both Houses of Congress, he was 
able practically to appoint his successor, and that a suc- 
cessor who had pledged himself to follow in Jackson's 
footsteps, in case of his election. 

Within two months after Van Buren's inauguration, 
Jackson's specie circular had brought on a panic, and 
most of the banks of the country had suspended. Ken- 
tucky found herself in much the condition which had 
produced the Relief and the Anti-Relief parties, of a few 
years before. Her citizens were almost all of the debtor 
class, having borrowed money for numberless private 
speculations based upon the supposition that the high 
prices, then prevailing, were to be permanent. When 



A CHAPTER IN FINANCIAL HISTORY 407 

the Legislature again assembled, in the spring of 1837, 
therefore, they were met by tumultuous demands for 
some sort of relief, but, in this crisis, they recalled the fate 
of the Replevin laws, and avoided extreme measures. 

By safe and conservative means, the immediate crisis 
was passed, and specie payment was resumed, after a 
suspension of a little more than a year. 

The spirit which had caused the passage of the old 
Replevin laws was still vigorous in the State, but it never 
again secured control of the Legislature, and, from the 
panic of 1837 to the present day, conservatism has ruled 
in the financial affairs of the Pioneer Commonwealth. 



CHAPTER XIII 

KENTUCKY IN THE WAR WITH MEXICO 

The institution of slavery, established in Virginia in 
1 6 19, spread to Kentucky as naturally as it spread to any 
other section of the " Old Dominion," and when separa- 
tion took place, slavery remained in Kentucky by a right 
which few thought of disputing. In expressing her will- 
ingness to allow Kentucky to become a State, Virginia 
stipulated that the existing custom of slavery should not 
be interfered with,^ and, in the Constitution, made and 
submitted to her before Kentucky took her place in the 
Union, it was expressly stated that, "The Legislature 
shall have no power to pass laws for the emancipation of 
slaves without the consent of their owners, or without 
paying their owners, previous to such emancipation, a 
full equivalent in money, for the slaves so emancipated: 
they shall have no power to prevent immigrants to this 
State from bringing with them such persons as are deemed 
slaves by the laws of any one of the United States, so long 
as any person of the same age or description shall be 
continued in slavery by the laws of this State." ^ 

Under these sufficient guarantees, the slave population 
of Kentucky increased two hundred and twenty-four and 
one-half per cent between 1790 and 1800,^ although, dur- 

1 Johnston's "American Political History," Woodburn Ed., II, p. 34. 

2 Art. IX, Text of Constitution, Marshall, I, pp. 396-413. This whole 
article describes powers granted and denied the Legislature relative to slavery. 

3 A table, in Collins, II, pp. 258-271, gives full census reports for Kentucky 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR WITH MEXICO 409 

ing the same period, there began to be manifested the in- 
evitable desire of the few opponents of the system to or- 
ganize for its destruction. 

Up to the year 1829, however, abohtion and emancipa- 
tion movements, in the nation as in the State, were in 
general peaceful, but the appearance of William Lloyd 
Garrison and his publications, "The Genius of Universal 
Emancipation," and the "Liberator," mark a new epoch. ^ 
With them abolition, immediate and irrespective of the so- 
called rights of owners, started upon its wild career. 
Peaceful discussion of plans acceptable to North and 
South alike ended; for abolition in Garrison's hands be- 
came a firebrand, a doctrine of aggression which knew no 
compromise,^ a war against "union with slaveholders," 
an attack upon the very Constitution itself, which was 
denounced as, " a league with death and a covenant with 
Hell." 

In 1 83 1, Cassius M. Clay, son of General Green Clay, 
went to Yale College, and was there brought under the 
magic of Garrison, already well launched upon his dra- 
matic crusade. Soon after Clay's admission to the Jun- 
ior Class, the College was stirred by the news that "Gar- 
rison was going to speak in the South Church." 

"I had," writes Clay,^ "never heard an abolitionist, nor 
the name hardly," so complete was "the isolation of 
thought between the Liberals of the South and the North," 

from 1790 to 1870. On p. 261 the figures concerning slave population and rate 
of increase are given. 

1 The former was started in Baltimore in 1829; the latter in Boston two 
years later. 

2 Johnston's "History of American Political Parties," Woodburn Ed., II. 

P- 45- 

3 "Memoirs," I, p. 56—58. 



4IO KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

but, "I went to hear Garrison. In plain, logical and sen- 
tentious language he treated the ' Divine Institution,' so as 
to burn like a branding-iron into the most callous hide of 
the slaveholder and his defenders, I felt all the horrors 
of slavery; but my parents were slaveholders; all my kin- 
dred in Kentucky were slaveholders; and I regarded it 
as I did other evils of humanity, as the fixed law of na- 
ture or of God. . . . Garrison dragged out the mon- 
ster . . . and left him stabbed to the vitals, and dying at 
the feet of every logical and honest mind. ... I then 
resolved . . . that, when I had the strength, if ever, I 
would give slavery a death struggle." 

Such was the initiation of the man who boasted that he 
was the first real abolitionist of Kentucky. The iron had 
entered deep into his soul, and, from that moment, the 
friend of slavery was to him the enemy of mankind. 

After two years spent at Yale, Cassius Clay returned to 
Kentucky, where he entered the field of politics, and be- 
gan the free expression of his views. The impression, 
made by Garrison, time and experience only served to 
deepen, and, as the slavery cloud darkened over Kentucky, 
the "Lion of Whitehall," vaunted his abolitionist theories 
in the faces of the slaveocracy as boldly and fearlessly 
as if the whole world were on his side. He knew the 
danger of his course as well as any man. The terror in- 
spired by the slave power, he said upon one occasion, is 
but faintly indicated by the declaration of a minister of 
South Carolina who said that it "were better for him, 
rather than denounce slavery, 'to murder his own mother, 
and lose his soul in hell!' " ^ This is of course the exag- 
gerated style, characteristic of the abolitionist of the pe- 

1 " Memoirs," I, p. io6. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR WITH MEXICO 411 

riod; but no one, who knew Cassius M. Clay, will ven- 
ture to deny that he had the courage of his convictions, 
and was a man, if one ever existed, who feared no foe. 

In 1 84 1, an act was introduced into the Kentucky Leg- 
islature, for repealing the law of 1833,^ which prevented 
the importation of slaves into Kentucky, but it failed to 
pass. Cassius Clay seized this occasion for denouncing 
slavery and its defenders in the savage language which 
he knew well how to use. To the threats of the slave- 
holders, he replied that neither bowie knives, pistols nor 
mobs could force him to change his course toward the in- 
stitution, and he warned them that, although ready to sac- 
rifice his life, if need be, in the cause, they would not find 
him "a tame victim of either force or denunciation." ^ 

In the election of 1844, one grave and important ques- 
tion of international interest dominated all others: ^ "Shall 
Texas be admitted to the union of the States .?" There is 
now a very general agreement, among historians, that 
Texas was a part of the Louisiana purchase.^ It is also a 
recognized fact that, in the treaty of 18 19, in which Florida 
was purchased by the United States, our claim to Texas was 

1 Passed February 2, 1833. See Collins, I, p. 37. This law was responsible 
for the fact that the slave population in Kentucky increased less rapidly during 
the decade 1830-1840 than during any other decade prior to 1850. On Febru- 
ary 24, 1849, '^^ w^s so amended as "no longer to prohibit persons from pur- 
chasing and bringing into the State slaves for their own use." Collins, I, p. 58. 
On March 2, i860, all such restrictions were finally repealed. Ibid., p. 83. 

2 Wilson's "Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America," I, p. 629. 

3 The question of "The re-occupation of Oregon," was only a campaign cry 
by which the Democrats hoped to hold their Northern following. Negotiations 
for compromise with England had been quietly opened even before the election, 
by which the 49° instead of 54° 40' parallel was fixed, in 1846. Blaine's "Twenty 
Years in Congress," I, p. 50. 

4 This is proved almost to a demonstration in Henry Adams' "Administra- 
tion of Jefferson and Madison." 



412 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

definitely abandoned, against the earnest protest of Henry 
Clay/ and many other prominent leaders. Andrew Jack- 
son had, at the time, given his consent to the treaty, as 
Monroe had represented to him that the cession of Texas 
was a temporary measure. " Having long known," writes 
Monroe to Jackson, while the treaty Was pending,^ " the 
repugnance with which the Eastern portion of our Un- 
ion . . . have seen its aggrandizement to the West and 
South, I have been decidedly of the opinion that we ought 
to be content with Florida for the present. . . ." In re- 
ply Jackson declared, " I am clearly of your opinion that, 
for the present, we ought to be content with the Floridas." ^ 

And so Clay's eloquent protests had been lost, his claim 
"that Congress alone have power to cede territory" ^ had 
been of no avail, and the Florida treaty had become the 
law of the land. It had " cut off slave territory beyond 
the Mississippi, below 36° 30', all except the diagram in 
Arkansas, which was soon to become a State," ^ but it had 
opened Florida, and had therefore been accepted by the 
slaveholders, under the belief that no better terms could 
have been secured from Spain. This belief, however, had 
been soon shattered, in Jackson's mind, by a discovery 
that Spain had actually offered to grant both Florida and 
Texas for the sum finally paid for Florida alone. 

"In 1829-30, . . ." writes Jackson,® "Mr. Irwin ^ . . . 

1 Johnston's "American Political History," Woodburn Ed., II, p. 66. 

2 Monroe to Jackson, May 22, 1820. Text, Benton's "Thirty Years' View," 

I, P- IS- 

3 Benton, I, p. 16. 

* "Memoirs of John Quincy Adams," V, p. 53. 

5 Benton, I, p. 18. 

6 Ford MSS., Lenox Library. 

^ Geo. W. Erving, minister at Madrid during the negotiation of the Florida 
Treaty. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR WITH MEXICO 413 

placed in my hands a copy of the correspondence between 
him and the Spanish minister at Madrid, which showed 
that he had negotiated a treaty by which Spain recognized 
the ancient Hmit of Louisiana, to the Rio Grande, and 
ceded Florida for the sum paid for it, that he had written 
to Washington ^ for powers to close this treaty at Madrid; 
instead ... he received an order to transfer the negotia- 
tion to Washington, where Mr. Adams closed the negotia- 
tion confining the Western boundary of Louisiana to the 
Sabine. I at once knew that Mr. Adams' object was to 
keep down the growing political ascendency in the South 
and West." - 

From the moment that Jackson made this astonishing 
discovery, he had regarded the treaty of 18 19 as void. 
"The treaty of 1803 (which gave us Texas) . . . remains 
in force," he declared, "as the supreme law of the land." ^ 
By it Texas was made a part of the United States. It 
was "wantonly and corruptly ceded from us . . . we 
must regain Texas, peaceably if we can, forcibly if we 
must." 

He had then deliberately set on foot a series of events, 
beginning with Sam Houston's migration to Texas, and 

1 In reply to questions concerning this story of Erving's, as John Quincy 
Adams declares in his "Diary" (VIII, p. 464), "... I said I had no doubt this 
was one of G. W. Erving's lies, as there was not a greater liar upon earth." 
Benton, however ("Thirty Years' View," I, p. 16), says that, during the re- 
newed negotiations Mr. Adams used an expression that "Spain had offered 
more than we accepted, and that she dare not deny it." 

2 Benton's "Thirty Years' View," I, pp. 15, 16, shows that he was dimly 
conscious of the fact that we had "refused to accept as much as Spain had 
offered. . . . To prevent the slavery extension question from becoming a test 
in the presidential election," he says, "was the true reason for giving away 
Texas, and the true solution of . . . the strange refusal to accept as much as 
Spain offered." 

3 Ford MSS., Lenox Library. 



414 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

ending with the battle of San Jacinto, by which Texas 
was freed from Mexico, and made an independent Repub- 
Hc. But he had done this, not as the champion of slavery 
and its extension, as we have long been led to believe, but 
as the champion of what he conceived to be the nation's 
rights. 

The southern States generally advocated annexation 
for two reasons. They felt that, with the prospect of the 
speedy admission of two more northern States, a new 
slave State was needed to help preserve the traditional 
"balance in the Senate," and they also believed that Eng- 
land was preparing to bring about the abolition of slavery 
in Texas, if not to secure her own authority over the new 
Republic.^ Of this latter danger, Jackson was profoundly 
convinced; and, had Henry Clay viewed the question 
from this standpoint, there is little doubt that his posi- 
tion in 1844 would have been consistent with that of 18 19. 
Then, he had been the chief opponent of the treaty which 
surrendered our claim to Texas. Now he came forward 
to oppose the re-annexation policy; but the basis of his 
opposition was the plea that such a course would cause an 
unnecessary war with Mexico. "We could not . . . 
incorporate Texas into the Union," he wrote in Decem- 
ber, 1843,^ "without involving the United States in war 
with Mexico, and, I suppose, nobody would think it wise 
or proper to engage in war with Mexico for the acquisition 
of Texas. ..." In this opinion. Clay strangely mis- 
judged the character of the man who, from his place of 
retirement at "The Hermitage," was directing the Texas 
campaign. "We must regain Texas," was Jackson's con- 

1 " Review of the Mexican War" by Chas. F. Porter, pp. 11-12. 

2 Henry Clay to J. J. Crittenden. Coleman's "Crittenden," I. p. 207. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR WITH MEXICO 415 

stant declaration, "peaceably if we can, forcibly if we 
must." ^ 

Clay's clearly expressed belief was that there were im- 
portant questions enough upon which to appeal to the 
people, in the coming presidential campaign, without 
dragging in questions of annexation. Therefore, if he, 
the leader and certain candidate of the Whig party, and 
Martin Van Buren, who seemed sure to be the demo- 
cratic standard bearer in the campaign of 1844, should 
both openly declare against the immediate annexation 
of Texas, the question would be put aside, and the two 
parties could contend upon the basis of the questions al- 
ready before the nation. This appears to have been the 
idea upon which the two rival leaders acted; for, in April, 
1844, just before the meetings of the national conven- 
tions of their respective parties, they issued their respec- 
tive declarations. 

That of Clay, dated Raleigh, April 17, 1844, appeared in 
the columns of the "National Intelligencer. " It is known 
as the "Raleigh letter," ^ and expresses unqualified op- 
position to the project of annexing Texas, under existing 
circumstances. At present, it declares, "annexation and 
war with Mexico are identical," but, "if, without the 
loss of national character, without the hazard of foreign 
war, with the general concurrence of the nation, without 
any danger to the integrity of the Union, and without 

1 This expression is frequently repeated in the Jackson letters, (Ford Collec- 
tion), in the Lenox Library, chiefly unpublished material. 

2 Text, Colton's "Last Years of Henry Clay," pp. 25-31; Niles, LXVI, 
pp. 152-153. It was not published until April 27th. Schouler, IV, p. 465. 
Full discussion, Von Hoist's "Constitutional History of the United States," II, 
pp. 657-663; Schurz's "Clay," II, pp. 244-246. See also letter of Clay to 
Crittenden, dated Raleigh, April 17, 1844. Coleman's "Crittenden," II, p. 219. 



41 6 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

giving an unreasonable price for Texas, the question of 
annexation were presented, it would appear in quite a 
different light from that in which, I apprehend, it is now 
to be regarded." In this letter, one looks in vain for any 
statement that Clay's opposition to annexation is due to 
the fact that slave territory will be thereby extended. He 
lays the emphasis upon the inevitable war which would 
follow annexation under present conditions. 

On the same day. Van Buren published, in the columns 
of "The Globe," a letter of similar Import.^ Perhaps 
this was, as some have surmised, merely a strange co- 
incidence, but it has much more the appearance of pre- 
established harmony,^ brought about by Clay's expressed 
desire to keep the troublesome Texas question out of the 
campaign. 

Clay's declaration, together with his oft-expressed 
aversion to the institution of slavery, and his long service 
in the cause of gradual emancipation, satisfied the Whigs, 
and he was nominated by acclamation.^ 

Van Buren 's letter, on the other hand, proved his po- 
litical death warrant, as the Democrats wanted a candi- 
date who would carry out the Jackson program and re- 
annex Texas. Their convention, accordingly, passed him 
over, and nominated (May 29, 1844) James K. Polk."* 

1 Text, Niles, LXVI, pp. 153-157. It is dated Lindenwood, April 20, 1844. 

2 Blaine's "Twenty Years in Congress," I, p. 30. These letters went before 
the people just when Secretary of State, Calhoun, was presenting to the Senate 
his annexation treaty. With the treaty, Calhoun presented a dispatch of Lord 
Aberdeen mentioning the desire of England to procure abolition in every part 
of the world. The treaty was defeated on June 8, 1844. Schurz's "Clay," II, 
p. 247, for details, also II, p. 259. 

3 May I, 1844. Sargent's "Clay," p. 84, gives a graphic picture of the 
scene of the nomination. 

4 Details of convention, Schurz's "Clay," II, pp. 250-251. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR WITH MEXICO 417 

The democratic watchword, " Re-annexation of Texas 
and Re-occupation of Oregon," was soon having its nat- 
ural effect, appealing, as it did, to the imperialistic in- 
stinct, always dominant in the Anglo-Saxon race. The 
abolitionists, however, could see in it only a demand for 
new slave territory, for to them the entire agitation, for 
the re-annexation of Texas, was a vast proslavery plot 
which must be thwarted at any cost; and Cassius M. 
Clay entered into the campaign for his great kinsman, 
with characteristic energy. He urged all anti-slavery 
men to support the Whig candidate ^ rather than the other 
Kentuckian, James G. Birney, whom the "Liberty party" 
had nominated the previous year,^ arguing that Henry 
Clay might be chosen, while Birney could not, and that 
Clay was "irrevocably bound to oppose the annexation 
of Texas." 

But it was soon evident that Polk, and not Henry Clay, 
represented the popular position. Even Kentucky, ardent 
as was her loyalty to Clay, showed signs of backsliding. 
R. P. Letcher, her Whig Governor, wrote to J. J. Critten- 
den, "... We have our troubles here, and they are not 
few. The Whig party is in the greatest peril and dis- 
traction — no mistake. I am no alarmist, but a close 
observer of the times. There is a restless state of things 
in the Whig ranks which amounts almost to delirium. 
D has behaved outrageously, he has offered a resolu- 

1 Cassius M. Clay's "Memoirs," I, p. 93; Henry Wilson's "Rise and Fall 
of the Slave Power," I, p. 630. 

2 James G. Birney had been nominated at Buffalo, August 30, 1843, ^.s the 
Liberty party candidate, upon a platform of slavery agitation. Schouler, IV, 
p. 474. The Liberty party were not in sympathy with the "Abolitionists" of 
the Garrison type. They asked "nothing except what the Constitution au- 
thorizes," and regarded the Constitution "with unabated affection." Schurz's 
"Clay," II, p. 253. 

Kentucky — 27 



4i8 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

tfon in the Senate nominating General Taylor for the 
presidency." ^ 

For once, the "Great Commoner" found himself upon 
what appeared to be the weak and timid side. He saw 
himself misrepresented, and was said to be courting the 
favor of the abolitionists, a charge which he deeply re- 
sented. Cassius M. Clay, whose bitter abolition speeches 
were attracting wide attention, was quoted as his son,^ 
and the statements of the two were often confused in the 
public mind. He was represented, in the South, as an 
abolitionist; ^ while his northern enemies abused him as 
a slaveholder and the tool of the slave power. As his 
opposition to the immediate annexation of Texas had not 
been upon the ground of his anti-slavery views, but upon 
that of political expediency, he, therefore, determined to 
restate his position and clear himself from the hateful 
charge of courting the abolitionists.^ Politically speak- 
ing, it was an unwise move; but it was consistent with 
the character of the man who "would rather be right 
than be President." Late in July, his restatement ap- 
peared: ^ 

"Far from having any personal objection to the annex- 

1 R. P. Letcher to J. J, Crittenden, Frankfort. Coleman's "Crittenden," 
I, p. 220, for text. 

2 He was really only a distant kinsman. Schouler, IV, p. 476. 

3 "Memoirs of Cassius M. Clay," I, pp. 101-102. 

4 Clay to St. F. Miller, Ashland, July i, 1844. Colton's "Private Correspond- 
ence of Henry Clay," pp. 490-491, for text. In this letter he repeals the charge 
of courting abolitionists. "... As to the idea of my courting the abolition- 
ists," he says, "it is perfectly absurd. No man in the United States has been 
half as much abused by them as I have been." 

5 Dated Ashland, July 27, 1844, addressed to Messrs. Thomas M. Peters 
and John M. Jackson. Text, Niles, XLVI, p. 439. This was only one of a 
number of such letters written by Clay about this time. See Schouler, IV, 
pp. 476-477- 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR WITH MEXICO 419 

ation of Texas, I should be glad to see it, without dis- 
honor, without war, with the common consent of the 
Union, and upon just and fair terms. I do not think that 
the subject of slavery ought to affect the question, one 
way or the other. Whether Texas be independent, or 
incorporated in the United States, I do not believe it 
will prolong or shorten the duration of that institution. 
It is destined to become extinct ... by the operation of 
the inevitable laws of population. It would be unwise to 
refuse a permanent acquisition, which will exist as long 
as the globe remains, on account of the temporary insti- 
tution." 

This is not the letter of a political trimmer, such as 
history has tried to make Henry Clay appear, in connec- 
tion with this incident, and the same may be said of his 
more famous "Alabama letters" v/hich appeared about 
the same time. These are all consistent with the Raleigh 
letter, in which he had announced his position, just before 
his nomination, and with his numerous private and less 
familiar letters of this period, and they accomplished what 
they had been written to accomplish. They showed that 
Henry Clay was not an abolitionist and was not fairly 
entitled to the support of the abolitionists, and the Liberty 
party press at once held him up to view as a man who 
cared nothing about the slavery element in the Texas 
question, which to them was the only element worthy of 
consideration. 

"Your letter on the Texas question," wrote his friend, 
J. C. Wright, "has given the rascals a new impulse. 
Liberty-men, Locofocos, and timid Whigs, use the letter 
as a bug-a-boo to the antiannexation. We defend it as 
in accordance with what you before said, and I think it 



420 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

will leave little injurious impression upon the minds of 
our friends. But the public mind is excited — men are 
confederated together in appeals to the very worst pas- 
sions of our nature, and the public mind is feverish and 
unstable. This will not be more than a nine days' topic 
of vituperation. With the old issue, we are safe, depend 
upon it. . . . " ^ But in this opinion, Mr. Wright proved 
himself a false prophet. The letters, all innocent in them- 
selves, proved fatal to the "Great Commoner's" ambi- 
tions. They served, "to make those Whigs drop away 
from him, who considered annexation as the principal 
question in this electoral campaign, and who either 
favored it or unconditionally rejected it because of slav- 
ery." 2 His kinsman, Cassius M. Clay, at once wrote to 
him, explaining that he had all along urged his election 
upon "the ground of his antislavery views, so often ex- 
pressed, and his opposition to Texas." I declared, he 
says, "that, if the interpretations put upon his views in 
the Raleigh and Alabama letters were the true ones, I 
should at once return to Kentucky and be silent." ^ 

Henry Clay's response, which was intercepted and pub- 
lished, gave his enemies additional opportunity to declare 
him a double dealer. In it, he requested his kinsman to 
continue his canvass: but urged, "that you should avoid 
committing me. ... At the North I am represented 
as an ultra supporter of the institution of slavery, while 
at the South I am described as an abolitionist; when I 
am neither the one nor the other. As we have the same 
surname, and are, moreover, related, great use is made 

1 J. C. Wright to Henry Clay, September 5, 1844. Colton's "Private Cor- 
respondence of Henry Clay," p. 493. 

2 Von Hoist's " Constitutional History of the United States," II, pp. 662-663. 

3 "Memoirs of Cassius M. Clay," I, p. 100. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR WITH MEXICO 42 1 

at the South against me of whatever falls from you. 
There you are even represented as being my son; hence 
the necessity of the greatest circumspection. . . . You 
are watched wherever you go; and every word you pub- 
hcly express will be tortured and perverted as my own 
are. . , . ^ 

In this letter, also, there is no evidence of intent to de- 
ceive. Having stated his position upon the all pervading 
topic. Clay asks his kinsman to continue his canvass, but 
to avoid committing him to a false position before the 
abolitionists of the country. If any should care to sup- 
port him, upon these grounds, so much the better, but, he 
adds, "after all I am afraid that you are too sanguine in 
supposing that any considerable number of the liberty- 
men can be induced to support me. . . ." ' 

But, in spite of the consistency of his course, every at- 
tempt to convince the North that he had not varied from 
the position taken in his Raleigh letter, failed. The Polk 
presses held up to scorn and ridicule what they called 
Clay's " Six Texas Manifestoes; " ^ and the disastrous effect 
of his so-called temporizing policy was satirized by one of 
his own supporters, who afterwards declared that, "the 
only qualification he should ask of a candidate in future 
would be that he could neither read nor write." ■* 

The result was natural, and reflects no discredit upon 
the character of Henry Clay. The abolitionists hap- 
pened to hold the balance of power in the closely con- 
tested campaign, and, when they discovered that he de- 

1 Full text, "Cassius M. Clay's Memoirs," I, pp. 101-102. 

2 Ibid. 

3 Several other letters in a compromising vein had followed his intercepted 
letter to Cassius M. Clay. 

* Schouler, IV, pp. 477-478. 



422 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

clined to pose as the champion of their view of the Texas 
question, they deserted him and voted for their logical 
choice, James G. Birney, v^ho received over nine times 
as many votes as he had received in 1840.^ 

"It is pretty well ascertained," wrote Ambrose Spencer, 
on November 21, 1844,^ "that had New York given you 
her vote, you would have been elected. This considera- 
tion is very mortifying to us; and yet, I venture to affirm, 
that in no State of the Union had you warmer, or more 
vigilant and vigorous supporters. Everything that could 
be effected by human means was done. . . . The result 
of our canvass shows what mighty efforts have been made. 
You received 232,411 votes; Polk received 237,432; Birney, 
15,875. What a monstrous poll. You received 6,594 
more votes than Harrison did in 1840, when his majority 
exceeded 13,000. You will perceive that the abolition 
vote lost you the election, as three fourths of them were 
firm Whigs, converted into abolitionists." 

If it be bad politics to court the support only of those 
who agree with the position of the candidate, then Henry 
Clay was guilty of "bad politics" in the campaign of 1844. 
He alienated the friendly abolitionist vote, by a clear 
statement of the fact that their cause was not his cause, 
their view of the Texas question not his view. By this, 
he lost the election, because there were not Whigs enough 
left in the party to elect him. Those who did vote for 
him, however, were his real followers, and forever after- 
ward pointed "with unutterable pride to the fact that we 

1 In 1840 Birney had received only 6,745. In 1844 he received 58,879- 
Table in Blaine's "Twenty Years in Congress," I, p. 37. 

2 Ambrose Spencer to H. Clay, Albany, N. Y., November 21, 1844. Colton's 
"Private Correspondence of Henry Clay," pp. 501-502. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR WTTH MEXICO 423 

cast our votes for the man 'who would rather be right, 
than be President.' " ^ 

Clay, as usual, received the electoral vote of Kentucky, 
but his popular majority in the State was only nine, thou- 
sand two hundred and sixty-seven, whereas Harrison, four 
years before, had received a majority of twenty-five 
thousand eight hundred and seventy-three.- This falling 
off of his strength was due in no wise to a diminution of 
Clay's popularity, for he was now as ever the idol of the 
Kentucky people, but rather to the fact that the Pioneer 
Commonwealth felt, to the full, the martial strain which 
ran through the party cry of the Jacksonian Democrats — 
"Re-annexation of Texas, fifty-four forty or fight." This 
was a cry which many, even of Clay's staunchest ad- 
mirers, could not resist; and, in addition, there was a 
considerable population in Kentucky, inclined, both by 
training and self-interest, to favor the extension of slavery 
into new territories. We can realize the strength of the 
latter motive when we consider that, by competent au- 
thority, it had been estimated that, could Texas be ob- 
tained and slavery established there, the market price 
of slaves would be raised fifty per cent — no small con- 
sideration to a man owning fifty or a hundred slaves.^ 

The enthusiasm for Henry Clay was not abated by 
this new defeat. His Ashland home was the Mecca to- 
ward which delegations from the Whigs of every section 
repaired, to present resolutions of unaltered devotion, 
and undiminished confidence. It was more like worship 

1 P. H. Sylvester and others to H. Clay, Coxsackie, November 27, 1844. 
Colton's "Private Correspondence of Henry Clay," p. 507. 

2 Collins, I, pp. 45, 50; also II, 370. 

3 Smith's "Political History of Slavery," I, p. 76; Brj'ant's "Popular History 
of the United States," IV, p. 363. 



424 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

than political adherence that was showered upon the de- 
feated statesman. "It is from the gushing out and full- 
ness of our hearts that we say to you that you have been 
our political idol," said one delegation,^ "and that we 
esteem you as highly, and love you as dearly as we ever 
have done — in defeat more than in victory — ^we can not 
say more, how can we say less." ^ Nor did his admirers 
confine themselves to words of affection. Clay's home 
was heavily mortgaged, and he was sadly considering 
the question of parting with it, when, upon calling at the 
Lexington bank to make a payment, he was informed 
that money had arrived from different parts of the coun- 
try, from unknown donors, sufficient to cancel the mort- 
gage and all his outstanding notes. The gift had been 
so skillfully arranged that it could not be easily declined, 
and Mr. Clay, after some hesitation, accepted it.^ 

After the defeat of Henry Clay, his kinsman, Cassius M. 
Clay, redoubled his attacks upon the slaveocracy, en- 
couraged, as he said,^ by having "seen a vitality in the 
popular heart in my Northern tour which foreshadowed 
the downfall of the slave power." He returned to Ken- 
tucky, in January, 1845, and issued an address setting 
forth, in strong terms, the blighting effect which slavery 
had produced upon that "young and beautiful Common- 
wealth." ^ He urged his fellow Kentuckians to choose 
delegates to a convention, for amending the Constitution 

1 P. H. Sylvester and others to Henry Clay. Colton's "Private Correspond- 
ence of Henry Clay," p. 506. 

2 About twenty-five pages of Colton's " Collection of Henry Clay's Private 
Correspondence" (pp. 495-520), are filled with letters, almost every one of 
which expresses similar views, and in terms often even more fervid. 

3 Carl Schurz's "Henry Clay," H, pp. 268-269. 
* "Memoirs of Cassius M. Clay,^' I, p. 105. 

5 Henry Wilson's "Rise and Fall of the Slave Power," I, p. 631. 



^ 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR WITH MEXICO 425 

and destroying slavery, and to continue the attempt until 
success should be achieved. 

After using the political journals until their columns 
were closed to him, he determined to start a press of his 
own, devoted to the cause of liberty.^ Such an under- 
taking, as he knew, would expose him to the danger of 
mob-violence, and he deliberately prepared to defend 
himself in case of attack. He selected for his office a 
brick building, and lined the outside doors with sheet iron, 
to prevent their being burned. He purchased two brass 
four-pounders and placed them, loaded with shot and nails, 
on a table just opposite a pair of folding-doors, which 
could be easily opened to give play to his cannon. " This 
house," he writes,' "I furnished with Mexican lances, 
and a limited number of guns. There were six or eight 
persons who stood ready to defend me. If defeated they 
were to escape by a trap-door in the roof; and I had 
placed a keg of powder, with a match, which I could set 
off, and blow up the office and all my invaders; and this 
I should most certainly have done, in case of the last 
extremity." ^ 

Thus barricaded, "The Lion of Whitehall" proceeded 
to insult his neighbors, relations, friends and enemies by 
his articles in "The True American." He advocated, not 
abolition only, but civil and political rights for the slave 
population; and warned the slaveholders that the aboli- 
tionists were becoming quite as reckless as the slaveholders 
themselves, and might, if provoked too far, display the 
same bold and aggressive spirit,^ 

1 "Memoirs," I, p. io6. The paper was called "The True American." 

2 Ibid. 

3 "Memoirs of Cassius M. Clay," I, p. 107. 

4 Henry Wilson's "Rise and Fall of the Slave Power," I, p. 632, 



426 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY* 

At such a time, any antislavery paper, in Kentucky, 
however tactfully managed, would have been doomed to 
failure, and perhaps to violent destruction; but "The True 
American" was peculiarly hateful to the slaveholders, 
both because of its bitter tone and because it was the 
work of a man whom they considered an apostate from 
his rightful and hereditary creed. 

On August 14, 1845, therefore, while confined to his 
bed by illness, Clay was visited by a committee, who 
stated that they had been sent by a meeting of a number 
of respectable citizens of Lexington to request him, "to 
suspend the publication of his paper, as its further contin- 
uance ... is dangerous to the peace of the community, 
and to the safety of our homes and families." 

Clay's answer was characteristic: "I say, in reply to 
your assertion that you are a committee appointed by a 
respectable portion of the community, that it cannot be 
true. Traitors to the laws and Constitution cannot be 
deemed respectable by any but assassins, pirates, and 
highway robbers. ... I treat them with the burning 
contempt of a brave heart and a loyal citizen. I deny 
their power and defy their action. Your advice with re- 
gard to my personal safety is worthy of the source whence 
it emanated, and meets with the same contempt from me 
which the purposes of your mission excite. Go tell your 
secret conclave of cowardly assassins that Cassius M. 
Clay knows his rights and how to defend them." ^ 

Four days later,^ another meeting of the slaveholders of 
Lexington was held to consider what should be done with 

1 This is taken from Wilson's " Rise and Fall of the Slave Power," I, p. 634, 
and its accuracy is acknowledged by Clay in his "Memoirs," I, p. 109. 

2 Dixon's "True History of the Missouri Compromise and its Repeal," 
P- 395- 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR WITH MEXICO 427 

"The True American." Thomas F. Marshall, the cele- 
brated orator, and a nephew of Chief Justice Marshall, 
reported an address to the people of Kentucky, stating 
that a party had arisen at the North which held that 
slavery was "opposed to religion, morals and law," and 
that negroes are entitled to their freedom. The aim of 
this party, it said, is to abolish slavery in America, and 
Cassius M. Clay is in "full Communion" with them. An 
abolition paper in a slave State is a nuisance of the most 
formidable character, and "The True American" is the 
worst type of such papers.^ This address having been 
adopted, a committee of sixty was sent to box up Clay's 
appliances, and to ship them out of the State. ^ 

Meanwhile, President Tyler, in cooperation with Con- 
gress, had acted upon the decision which the people had 
rendered by electing James K. Polk, and had brought 
Texas into the Union, Polk's inauguration had taken 
place the next day, and he had found himself confronted 
with the duty of meeting campaign pledges which might 
bring the nation into two wars. The "re-occupation of 
Oregon," if forced with the energy which the recent cam- 
paign had led men to believe that it would be, must in- 
evitably have caused war with England; but the negotia- 
tions agreeing to compromise the Oregon question by 
fixing the boundary at 49° instead of 54° 40' were already 
so far advanced ^ that anxiety upon this subject was no 

1 Henry Wilson's "Rise and Fall of the Slave Power," I, pp. 634-635. 

2 "Memoirs of Cassius M. Clay," I, pp. 107-109. Clay, upon recover- 
ing from his illness, sued the " Revolutionary Committee," but the court de- 
clared "The True American" a nuisance under the old English common law. 
Later, however, upon his return from the Mexican war, he recovered $2,500 
damages. 

3 Schurz's "Clay," II, p. 279. 



428 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

longer felt, by those familiar with the course of events. 
President Polk's Secretary of State, James Buchanan, 
continued these negotiations, and, in June of the follow- 
ing year, concluded the treaty of 1846,^ which peacefully, 
if not heroically, disposed of the question, and gave us a 
definite boundary in the Northwest. ^ The gallant cry, 
"fifty-four forty or fight," had dwindled to the more dis- 
creet murmur, "Forty-nine degrees and be thankful." 

The "re-annexation of Texas," however, already an 
accomplished fact, meant that the United States must 
take up the question of disputed boundaries, and must 
also face the consequences of having admitted Texas, in 
the face of a declaration, that Mexico would regard such 
an act as a just cause of war. 

With the justice or injustice of the conflict which soon 
began, we are not directly concerned : but that it was popu- 
lar in Kentucky cannot be doubted. Indeed the Presi- 
dent's call for volunteers was received with genuine 
enthusiasm in all sections, except New England. For the 
Whig leaders, who believed that, as an historical and geo- 
graphical fact, the Nueces was the real western boundary 
of Texas, and that the President had committed an act of 
unjustifiable aggression ^ in sending an army to occupy 

1 It was proclaimed in August, 1846. Text of treaty, Snow's "American 
Diplomacy," pp. 84-85. 

2 Blaine's "Twenty Years in Congress," I, pp. 50-54; Schouler, IV, p. 514; 
Wilson, IV, p. 117. Webster joined Calhoun in the opinion that the forty- 
ninth parallel would be a fair settlement of the old dispute. Rhodes, I, p. 86. 

3 President Polk really desired peace, if peace could be maintained without 
the sacrifice of our just demands. By which he meant our claim to Texas, the 
Texas for which Jackson had so long struggled, and which comprehended all 
that part of the Louisiana Purchase which John Quincy Adams had surrendered 
to Spain in the Florida Treaty. That Texas, in this sense, extended to the 
Rio Grande will hardly be questioned, after the investigations of Henry Adams. 
This was the Texas described in the act of the Texas Congress of December 19, 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR WITH MEXICO 429 

the country west of that river, enthusiasm was, of course, 
impossible, but to withhold their support from the Gov- 
ernment, when engaged in actual war, would have savored 
more of treason than of patriotism. And so, while stoutly 
insisting that the palm branch should be offered instead 
of the sword, they, for the most part, supported the war 
measures.^ 

In Kentucky there had been, from the beginning of the 
re-annexation movement, a strong sentiment of sympathy 
with Texas; and the knowledge that the military opera- 
tions had been entrusted to General Zachary Taylor, 
who had been reared a Kentuckian; ^ and that William 
O. Butler and Thomas Marshall, both prominent citi- 
zens of the State, were to be respectively commis- 
sioned Major General, and Brigadier General of Vol- 
unteers,^ added greatly to the enthusiasm for the cause. 
Upon the announcement that war had been actually de- 
clared, therefore, a wave of excitement swept over the 
State.^ 

1836 (Burgess's "Middle Period," p. 328), and Polk regarded it as his sworn 
duty to defend every foot of it, until other boundaries should be assigned to 
Texas either by act of Congress, or by treaty with Mexico. 

1 Lincoln, in his reply to Douglas' Ottawa speech, thus defines the attitude 
of an old Whig concerning the Mexican war: " I was an old Whig, and whenever 
the Democratic party tried to get me to vote that the war had been righteously 
begun by the President, I would not do it. But whenever they asked for any 
money ... to pay the soldiers there, ... I gave the same vote that Judge 
Douglas did." Raymond's "Life, Public Services and State Papers of Abraham 
Lincoln," p. 33. 

2". . . It would afford me much real pleasure," wrote General Taylor to 
Henry Clay, "to visit, if not the place of my nativity, where I was reared from 
infancy to early manhood. . . ." Taylor to Clay, December 28, 1847. Colton's 
"Private Correspondence of Henry Clay," p. 551. 

3 President Polk announced these appointments on June 29, 1846. "Annals 
of Kentucky," Collins, I, p. 53. 

* Henry Wilson's "Rise and Fall of the Slave Power," I, p. 635. Gov- 



430 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

Governor Owsley did not wait for the announcement 
of military appointments, or even for the arrival of the 
official call for the Kentucky quota of troops, but, on 
May 17,^ issued a proclamation calling upon Kentuckians 
of military age "to form themselves into volunteer com- 
panies" and report to him. The Louisville legion of nine 
companies already organized, promptly responded, and 
were accepted by the Governor, Four days later, the 
President issued his call to the States, to furnish forty- 
three thousand five hundred soldiers for service in Mexico, 
and, before the close of the next week. Governor Owsley 
announced that the quota of Kentucky (twenty-four hun- 
dred men) was complete. The Louisville legion (the 
First Regiment of Infantry, under Colonel Ormsby) had 
already started for the front, while the Second Regiment 
of Infantry,^ under Colonel Wm. R. McKee, and the 
First Regiment of Cavalry, under Colonel Humphrey 
Marshall, were ready for immediate service.^ 

These, together with the company of John S. Williams, 
were accepted by the War Department. Others were less 
fortunate, as seventy-five companies were offered beyond 
the number called for by the President. The difficulty had 
been, not in raising men but in rejecting them. Twelve 
thousand Kentuckians stood ready and eager to enlist, 

ernor Owsley had promised to make Cassius M. Clay Colonel of a Regiment of 
Kentucky Volunteers, but was forced, by protests from Clay's proslavery 
enemies, to recall his promise. 

1 " Annals of Kentucky," Collins, I, p. 53. 

2 Lieutenant Colonel Henry Clay, Jr. Other officers given in "Annals of 
Kentucky," Collins, I, p. 53. 

3 Cassius M. Clay was enlisted as Captain of the Third Company of Fayette 
County Volunteers in this Regiment. Other officers, etc., see "Annals of Ken- 
tucky," Collins, I, p. 53. See Clay's "Memoirs," p. 118, for characteristic 
account of how he received his captain's commission, 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR WITH MEXICO 431 

and the disappointment was great when it became known 
that most of them must be excluded.^ 

This eagerness for miHtary service, however, did not 
denote an educational fitness for it, on the part of Ken- 
tucky citizens. During the long years of peace, which the 
country had enjoyed, military habits had gone out of fash- 
ion, the custom of serving in the militia had fallen into 
contempt, and the whole militia system of the State had 
come to consist of a few half-drilled companies, and a 
good many wholly undrilled and undisciplined ones. Even 
among the officers, few had known more arduous mili- 
tary service than marshaling a civic parade or conduct- 
ing a sham battle. The preliminaries, which had to 
be gone through before the troops could start for the 
front, therefore, occupied considerable time, and, as a 
result, most of the Kentucky volunteers did not reach 
the front until after the capture of Monterey.^ 

Meanwhile, however. Colonel Humphrey Marshall's 
First Kentucky Cavalry had been transported to Mem- 
phis, Tennessee, by boat. Here they had mounted and 
begun the dreary overland march by way of Little Rock, 
Arkansas, to Port Lavaca on the coast of Texas, where 
commissary stores were collected, and the march across 
the disputed territory between the Nueces and the Rio 
Grande was begun. Through this vast, silent wilderness, 
with an occasional diversion in the shape of a hunting 
party or a duel,^ they pushed on towards General Taylor's 

1 "Annals of Kentucky," Collins I, p. 53; Shaler, p. 201. 

2 September 24, 1846. The Louisville Legion, First Kentucky Infantry, 
had joined General Taylor's army just before the siege of Monterey was begun, 
but took no conspicuous part in the battle. 

3 At Port Lavaca, Capt. Thos. F. Marshall and Lieut. James S. Jackson 
had met but without fatal results. "Cassius M. Clay's Memoirs," I, pp. 141 
et seq. for details of this and similar encounters. 



432 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

camp, where they found him, depressed enough. In spite of 
his recent victory at Monterey. Acting under orders from 
the War Department, General Scott had sent him a letter ^ 
declaring, " I shall be obliged to take from you most of the 
gallant officers and men (regulars and volunteers) whom 
you have so long and so nobly commanded. I am afraid 
that I shall . . . reduce you, for the time, to stand on the 
defensive. ..." 

" Upon our arrival " wrote Cassius M. Clay,^ General 
Taylor "invited me to dine with him. At the hour named 
I entered his tent, expecting to find, at least, plenty of 
good things, if not great ceremony, as the country was a 
fruitful one. But I sat down with the plainly dressed hero 
before his camp-chest, and partook of salt-pork, hard 
tack, and camp coffee. . . ." 

After this dinner, so characteristic of the simplicity 
of Taylor's military life, Clay, with Major John P. Gaines, 
and two companies of Colonel Marshall's regiment, was 
sent forward to Saltillo, to join the command of Gen- 
eral William O. Butler, where Clay was chosen to con- 
duct a scouting trip to Encarna^ion. On the third day, 
they reached their destination, only to find Major Borland, 
v/ith a scouting party from General Wool's army, already 
in possession. 

As the ranking officer present. Major Borland assumed 
command of both detachments, and, confident that there 
was not a Mexican soldier within five hundred miles, 
"determined to eat, drink and be merry," as Clay indig- 
nantly informs us.^ At dawn the following morning, they 

1 Scott to Taylor, New York, November 25, 1846. Text, Mansfield's 
"Mexican War," pp. 112-114. 

2 Memoirs," I, p. 142. 

3 "Memoirs of Cassius M. Clay," I, p; 144. 



1 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR WITH MEXICO 433 

found themselves surrounded by General Minon with sev- 
eral thousand Mexican cavalry. Surrender, under such 
conditions, v^as the only possible course, and, accordingly, 
on January 23, 1847, one month before the great vic- 
tory of Buena Vista, Major Gaines, Captain Clay, the 
thirty Kentucky cavalrymen, and Major Borland v^^ith 
his fifty Arkansas cavalrymen, were made prisoners of 
war, to be carried to the City of Mexico, and retained in 
confinement.^ 

"Before many days," says Clay,' "we met Santa Anna's 
army on the plains. . . . When we came to Santa Anna 
(himself) who was riding with his suite in a carriage drawn 
by six horses, with postillions, and outriders, in great 
style, I could but think of Taylor and his tin cups. ..." 

Moving on toward San Luis Potosi, the American pris- 
oners had a good opportunity to observe the habits and 
tastes of the Mexican general. " He was very fond of cock- 
fighting," Clay continues, " . . . and . . . had coops . . . 
suspended on donkeys and mules. . . . These were full 
of cocks . . . which he fought and ate when wanted. 
So passed on the general to his defeat at Buena Vista ..." 
and, "so we passed on to Mexico." 

At this point we must leave our interesting guide, and 
return to the other Kentuckians in General Taylor's 
camp. The news of the capture of Clay and his party 
convinced Taylor that Santa Anna was planning to take 
advantage of the weakened condition of the "Army of 
Occupation," to strike a blow at him, before turning to 
meet the invading hosts which General Scott was prepar- 

1 "Annals of Kentucky," Collins, I, p. 54; Frost's "Pictorial History of the 
Mexican War," p. 347. 

2 "Memoirs of Cassius M. Clay," I, pp. 146-149. 

Kentucky — 28 



434 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

ing to land at Vera Cruz.^ His own forces, with the Ken- 
tucky mounted volunteers of Colonel Humphrey Mar- 
shall's regiment, and Colonel McKee's Second Kentucky 
Regiment of Infantry, numbered only about seventy-five 
hundred.^ Of these, a considerable part must be left to 
garrison Saltillo and Monterey; and there appeared small 
hope of accomplishing anything of importance with the 
force which remained. His chief dependence was upon 
General Wool's command, some five hundred of whom 
were regulars; ^ but, in the critical moment, he was to find 
the Kentucky volunteers fully their equal. 

From time to time, disquieting rumors had reached him 
that Santa Anna had gathered a force of over twenty 
thousand men at San Luis Potosi, a fortified city, which lay 
about equally distant from Monterey, Vera Cruz and the 
City of Mexico, and within striking distance of them all.^ 

Convinced that Santa Anna's plan was to attack him, 
leaving Vera Cruz to take care of herself, aided, as she 
was sure to be, by the "Vomito," or yellow fever, Taylor 
advanced, early in February, to Agua Nueva, a strong 
position on the road to San Luis.^ 

1 Lieutenant Ritchie, bearer of dispatches from Scott to Taylor, fully ex- 
plaining all his plans, had been captured by the Mexicans, and Santa Anna 
thus had full information upon which to base his decision. Mansfield, p, 117; 
Kendall's "War Between the United States and Mexico," p. 11. 

2 H. H. Bancroft, "Mexico," V, p. 414. 

3 Table, Mansfield, p. 85; Frost, p. 354. General Taylor's ofiicial report 
says "two squadrons of cavalry and three batteries of light artillery, making 
no more than 453 men, composed the only force of regular troops," engaged at 
Buena Vista. Reprint, Smith's "Kentucky," pp. 575-582; Mansfield, pp. 125- 

143- 

4 "The War Between the United States and Mexico." By Geo. W. Kendall, 

p. II. 

5 Mansfield's "Mexican War," p. 120; Kendall's "War Between the United 
States and Mexico," p. 11. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR WITH MEXICO 435 

Here scouts brought definite information that Santa 
Anna, with an overwhelming force, was advancing toward 
him. The exact size of the enemy's army could not be 
determined,^ but there could be no doubt that it was many 
times that of his own, which, exclusive of the garrisons at 
Monterey and Saltillo, numbered only "forty-four hundred 
and twenty-five men." ^ 

With the coolness and deliberation which never de- 
serted him, Taylor selected his battlefield, choosing a 
strong mountain pass a few miles south of Saltillo, known 
to the Mexicans as La Angostura, or "the narrows," ^ 
but now known to the world by the historic name, Buena 
Vista. 

"At this point," says General Taylor's official report, 
" the road becomes a narrow defile, the valley on its right 
being rendered quite impracticable for artillery by a suc- 
cession of deep and impassable gullies, while on the left a 
succession of rugged ridges and precipitous ravines extends 
far back towards the mountain which bounds the val- 
ley. ..." 

Knowing Santa Anna as he did, Taylor was convinced 
that the outcome of the engagement must be either a vic- 
tory for the American army, or a massacre similar to that 
of the Alamo, though of vastly greater dimensions. His 
plan, in advancing to Agua Nueva, was that, by a sudden 
retreat, as the enemy appeared, he might draw them back 
to the favorable battle ground which he had selected.^ 

1 "The strength of the Mexican army is stated by Santa Anna, in his sum- 
mons," says Taylor's official report, "to be twenty thousand, and that estimate 
is confirmed by all the information since obtained." 

2 Taylor's official report; reprint, Smith's "Kentucky," pp. 575-582. 

3 Bartlett, III, p. 681. 

* Jenkins* " War between the United States and Mexico," p. 217. 



436 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

Accordingly, on February 21, thinking the moment for 
beginning the retreat had arrived, he broke camp, and 
leisurely retired to Buena Vista, leaving Colonel Yell 
and the Arkansas cavalry ^ to watch the advancing enemy, 
and to lure them back into the narrows. At the latter 
point, he posted Colonel Hardin with the First Illinois 
Infantry,^ while the main army was placed a mile and a 
half in the rear, in order that they might get the benefit 
of the stimulus which an army gains by an advance move- 
ment.^ 

The plan was successful. Santa Anna advancing, early 
on the morning of February 22, drove back the Arkansas 
cavalry, who retired to their new position on " the extreme 
left near the base of the mountain,"^ where Colonel 
Humphrey Marshall, with his First Kentucky Cavalry, 
joined him.^ The Second Kentucky Infantry, was posted 
at the crest of a ridge on the left and in the rear; while 
Colonel Jefferson Davis, and his Mississippi riflemen, were 
among the reserve in the rear. 

The scene was thus laid for a scientific reception of the 
"Napoleon of the V/est," should he display any of the 
rashness of his earlier days. But Santa Anna had grown 
more cautious with advancing years. At eleven o'clock, 
he sent a summons, demanding the surrender of the 
American army "at discression." "You are surrounded," 
he said, "by twenty thousand men and cannot . . . 
avoid suffering a rout. ... I wish to save you from a 



1 Jenkins, p. 218. 

2 Furber, p. 459. 

3 Brooks' " Mexican War," p. 205. 

4 Taylor's Ofi&cial Report. 

5 Ibid. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR WITH MEXICO 437 

catastrophe, and for that purpose give you this no- 
tice. . . . ^ 

General Taylor's reply was explicit and prompt: 
"... I beg leave to say that I decline acceding to your 
request. . . ." ^ 

Even then the expected attack was not made, as Santa 
Anna was awaiting the arrival of his rear column.^ The 
lesson of San Jacinto had not been lost upon him. The 
army before him was small, but it was commanded by 
men trained in the school which had produced Sam Hous- 
ton, and he felt that caution was eminently necessary, in 
spite of the vast disparity in numbers. 

His first movement was upon the right of the American 
position, but it was instantly checked by the Second Ken- 
tucky Regiment, and a section of artillery which General 
Taylor detached to meet them.^ 

A similar demonstration, with a similar result, was next 
attempted against the extreme left of the American army, 
where Colonel Marshall lay, with the First Kentucky and 
the Arkansas cavalries, both dismounted.^ 

At three in the afternoon, a shell from the howitzer of 
Santa Anna, announced what was supposed to be the be- 
ginning of a serious assault. It was followed by a terrific 
fire from thirty-two large Mexican cannon, but General 

1 Document reprinted in Brooks, p. 208. 

2 Document, Brooks, p. 209. General Taylor's messenger was a young 
Kentuckian, Thomas L. Crittenden, the son of John J. Crittenden. He was 
admitted, blindfolded, into Santa Anna's presence and asked whether Gen- 
eral Taylor was preparing to surrender. His reply was the afterwards famous 
expression, "General Taylor never surrenders!" 

3 Frost, p. 305; also Taylor's Official Report. 

4 Official Report. 

5 The whole, together with an Indiana rifle brigade, were under command 
of Colonel Marshall. Taylor's Official Report. 



438 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S fflSTORY 

Taylor, observing the Inaccuracy of the aim, directed his 
own batteries to remain silent. 

Then a Mexican messenger approached, bearing a flag 
of truce. He was conducted into the presence of the 
American commander, who, "was sitting quietly on his 
white charger, with his legs over the pummel of the sad- 
dle, watching the movements of the enemy. . . " ^ The 
messenger courteously declared, says Major Coffee, that, 
"he had been sent by his excellency ... to inquire in the 
most respectful manner, what he was waiting for," to 
which he adds, with evident relish, "old Rough and 
Ready gave the very pertinent reply that 'he was only 
waiting for General Santa Anna to surrender.' " ^ 

The messenger retired to his own lines, and the object 
of his visit was at once made evident, for the fire of the 
entire Mexican battery was immediately directed toward 
the point where the old chief sat, "utterly indifferent 
to the perils of his situation ... on his conspicuous 
white horse, peering through his spy-glass. . . ." To the 
anxious requests of his officers that he should at least 
give up his white horse, General Taylor replied that, 
"the old fellow had missed the fun at Monterey, on ac- 
count of a sore foot, and he was determined he should 
have his share this time." ^ 

Convinced, at last, that no serious attack would be 
made before morning, General Taylor retired to make 
certain of the safety of the men and stores at Saltillo; '* 
and, as the darkness descended upon the field of battle, 
the American troops could hear the noise of shouting 

1 Coffee's narative, "Taylor and his Generals," p. 184. 

2 Ibid., p. 186. 

3 "General Taylor." By the One-legged Sergeant, p. 35. 

4 Official Report. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR WITH MEXICO 439 

in the Mexican camp, as Santa Anna used his gift of 
eloquence to hearten his men for the hard duties of the 
morrow. Then there was stillness; and then the soft notes 
of Mexican music floated up through the narrows. Fi- 
nally all was again quiet, American and Mexican alike 
slumbering on their arms and dreaming of victory.^ 

At daybreak of the twenty-third, the battle was re- 
opened by an attack upon Colonel Marshall's Kentucky 
and Arkansas troops on the American left.- During the 
night, the enemy had thrown a body of light troops 
upon this side of the mountain, "with a view to out- 
flanking us," and these advanced, while a heavy column 
was moving up the San Luis road "against our center." ^ 
This latter movement required all the attention of Cap- 
tain Washington's battery, and the prospect looked seri- 
ous for the left wing defenders, although "our riflemen, 
under Colonel Marshall, who had been reinforced by 
three companies of Second Illinois volunteers, under Ma- 
jor Trail, maintained their ground handsomely against a 
greatly superior force. ... " "* Moreover, the guns of 
Washington's battery having now checked the central 
movement, the repelled forces began concentrating on the 
left, protected, in the changing of position, by the banks 
of the deep ravines through which they passed, and by "a 
murderous cross-fire of grape and canister, from a Mexi- 
can battery on the left." ^ 

"Our . . . line had given way," writes Major Andrew 

1 Brooks, p. 211. 

2 They had been reinforced by three companies of the Second Illinois Vol- 
unteers. 

3 Taylor's Official Report; reprint, Mansfield, pp. 128-129. 
* Taylor's Official Report; Mansfield, p. 129. 

5 Ibid., p. 129. 



440 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

Jackson Herod,^ one of Jefferson Davis' Mississippi rifle- 
men, "and a large column of infantry was advancing to 
get between our line of battle and the city of Saltillo, thus 
cutting our army into two parts." ^ 

At this critical moment, General Taylor arrived upon 
the field, and perceiving the danger, turned to Colonel Jef- 
ferson Davis who stood near, and gave his order, " Check 
that column." ^ It was an order which Zachary Taylor 
would have given to but few men, an order to sustain the 
rush of a small army already in motion and feeling victory 
in the air, and that with a few hundred volunteer troops. 
But it was promptly executed, with the assistance of 
Colonel McKee's Second Kentucky Infantry, which "had 
previously been ordered from the right to reinforce our 
left." ^ 

Scarcely was this feat accomplished, when "Colonel 
Davis discovered a brigade of cavalry approaching us al- 
most due south of our position." "Instantly reforming 
his men," continues Major Herod, ^ "he awaited their ap- 
proach, having issued orders, 'to fire when the head of 
their column was not over fifty yards from our line.' . . . 
We had but two shots at them, before they got out of our 
range." 



1 Letter from Major Herod, dated Beauvoir, Miss., March 22, 1907. 
"Evansville Courier," Sunday, April 21, 1907. 

2 "This portion of our Hne having given way," says General Taylor's Official 
Report, "and the enemy appearing in overwhelming force against our left flank, 
the light troops which had rendered such good service on the mountain were 
compelled to withdraw, which they did, for the most part, in good order." 
Mansfield, p. 130. 

3 Herod letter, ante; Taylor's Official Report. 

4 Taylor's Official Report. A section of Captain Bragg's artillery also be- 
longed to this reinforcement. Ibid. 

5 Herod letter, ante. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR WITH MEXICO 441 

Wounded, but refusing to leave his saddle,^ Colonel 
Davis was now called to face a new danger. A large body 
of Mexican lancers was drawing near from the north- 
east, threatening the position so long in dispute. Steady- 
ing his men for the shock of the first encounter, Davis 
calmly waited. They had approached, "in columns of 
regiments, the front regiment mounted upon grey and 
white ponies, ... to near seventy yards of us," - before 
they again became clearly visible, so broken was the 
ground over which they moved. From the opposite di- 
rection, meanwhile, reinforcements were advancing to 
Colonel Davis' relief.^ Their fire caused the Mexican 
lancers to swerve sharply to the right, exposing their 
flanks ■* to the Mississippi riflemen, who now opened upon 
them. A chain-shot, from the reinforcing column of Amer- 
icans, completed the process, and the lancers withdrew.^ 

Meanwhile, General Taylor sat, calm and alert, upon 
his white horse, sweeping the field with his long glasses, 
and marking the points where reinforcements seemed 
most needed. Seeing that a large body of the enemy 
was concentrating on his left, with the evident purpose of 
making a descent upon the hacienda of Buena Vista, 
where his train and baggage were deposited, he ordered 
a reinforcement of cavalry to aid in defending this im- 
portant position; but, before it could arrive, the enemy 
had made the attack, and had been "handsomely met by 

1 Herod letter, ante; "Taylor and his Generals," p. 165. 

2 Herod letter, ante. 

3 Colonel Lane's Third Indiana Volunteers, and Lieutenant Kilburn, with 
a piece of Captain Bragg's artillery. Taylor's Official Report; "Taylor and his 
Generals," p. 179. 

* Their left had hitherto been protected by the bank of a great ravine. 
5 Herod letter. 



442 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

the Kentucky and Arkansas cavalry under Colonels Mar- 
shall and Yell." ^ In the shock of this encounter, the Mexi- 
can column had been divided. One portion managed to 
regain the Mexican lines, but the other, sweeping past the 
American depot at Buena Vista, was cut ofF and left in 
perilous isolation,' in the rear of the American army. At 
this point, Santa Anna, by dispatching a messenger to 
General Taylor, as though requesting a parley, gained 
a respite of sufficient duration, to enable this imperilled 
detachment to regain its own lines in safety.^ 

And now came the final scene of the great battle. The 
firing had almost ceased, and General Taylor had left his 
position for a moment, when he was recalled by a terrific 
burst of musketry. Santa Anna had thrown forward his 
reserve for a last effort. The Illinois and Second Kentucky 
Infantry, who were in advance, had been suddenly con- 
fronted with an overwhelming force,^ and compelled to 
retire toward their lines. The Mexicans pressed forward 
in pursuit, until they came within range of Captain Wash- 
ington's Battery, whose destructive fire soon forced them 
to recoil. Hope now deserted them and they rushed from 
the field, the loss of which had cost them almost two 
thousand men in killed and wounded.^ 

General Taylor was left in possession of the bloody 
field, and his army bivouacked under the cold sky, await- 
ing the renewal of the conflict upon the morrow. But 

1 Taylor's Ofl&cial Report. Colonel Yell fell mortally wounded, and Ad- 
jutant Vaughan of the Kentucky cavalry was also killed. Ibid. 

2 Taylor's Official Report; Frost's "Pictorial History of the Mexican War," 

P- 377- 

3 Brooks, p. 22o; Frost, p. 377; Taylor's Official Report, etc. 

4 Frost's "Pictorial History of Mexico and the War," p. 378. 

5 Mansfield, p. 175. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR WITH MEXICO 443 

when morning dawned, they found only a deserted battle 
ground, strewn with the bodies of five hundred Mexican 
dead. The "Liberating Army of the North" was in full 
retreat, and, on March 9, it entered San Luis, having lost 
from desertion and death, about ten thousand men.^ 
With those that remained, Santa Anna hastened to meet 
the invading army of General Scott and incur new disasters 
at Cerro Gordo,- and along the route to the City of Mexico. 
The battle of Buena Vista was the crowning glory of 
Zachary Taylor's life, and it was the only important battle 
of the war in which Kentucky troops played a conspicuous 
and decisive part. Their conduct in this battle, is sympa- 
thetically described by General Taylor himself, in a letter 
written to Henry Clay from the field where his eldest son 
had fallen.^ 

"Headquarters, Army of Occupation, 

"Agua Nueva, Mexico, March i, 1847. 
" My dear Sir : You will no doubt have received, before 
this can reach you, the deeply distressing intelligence of 
the death of your son in the battle of Buena Vista. It is 
with no wish of intruding upon the sanctuary of parental 
sorrow, and with no hope of administering any consolation 
to your wounded heart, that I have taken the liberty of 
addressing you these few lines; but I have felt it a duty 
which I owe to the memory of the distinguished dead, to 
pay a willing tribute to his many excellent qualities, and 

1 H. H. Bancroft's "Mexico," V, p. 433. 

2 Luther Giddings' "Sketches of the Campaign in Northern Mexico," 
p. 295. The only Kentucky troops engaged in this battle were Capt. John S. 
Williams' company, which had been rejected under the Kentucky quota, but 
were specially accepted by the War Department. "Annals of Kentucky," 
Collins, I, pp. 53, 55. 

3 Text, Sargent's "Henry Clay," p. 102. 



444 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

while my feelings are still fresh, to express the desolation 
which his untimely loss and that of other kindred spirits 
have occasioned. 

"I had but a casual acquaintance with your son, until he 
became for a time a member of my military family, and I 
can truly say that no one ever won more rapidly upon my 
regard, or established a more lasting claim to my respect 
and esteem. Manly and honorable in every impulse, with 
no feeling but for the honor of the service and of the 
country, he gave every assurance that in the hour of need 
I could lean with confidence upon his support. Nor was 
I disappointed. Under the guidance of himself and the 
lamented M'Kee, gallantly did the sons of Kentucky, in 
the thickest of the strife, uphold the honor of the state 
and the country. 

"A grateful people will do justice to the memory of 
those who fell on that eventful day. But I may be per- 
mitted to express the bereavement which I feel in the loss 
of valued friends. To your son I felt bound by the strong- 
est tie of private regard, and when I miss his familiar 
face and those of M'Kee and Hardin, I can say with truth 
that I feel no exultation in our success. 

"With the expression of my deepest and most heartfelt 
sympathies for your irreparable loss, I remain your friend, 

"Z. Taylor. 
"Hon. Henry Clay, New Orleans, La." 

With the history of General Scott's triumphant march, 
from Vera Cruz to the heart of the Mexican capital, we 
are not particularly concerned, as the Kentucky troops 
designed for service in "The Army of Invasion" did not 
reach the front in time to share in the glories of the cam- 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR WITH MEXICO 445 

paign.^ The war came to an end with General Scott's 
army in full possession of the city of Mexico, and the 
Mexican nation prostrate at our feet.^ 

At the close of the war the question upon every tongue 
was, "What shall we do with our victory?" By degrees 
there emerged a widespread desire that, "The banner 
now floating from the city of Mexico shall never be with- 
drawn," which desire was clearly expressed in a para- 
graph which James Buchanan, Secretary of State, pre- 
pared for President Polk's opening message to Congress, 
and which President Polk promptly rejected.^ 

"We must," it declared with suspicious devoutness, 
"fulfill that destiny which Providence may have in store 
for both countries." In plain language we must yield to 
"manifest destiny" and absorb the whole of Mexico. 

This desire was by no means confined to the pro-slavery 
sections, but was national in scope, though most of the 
Whigs, northern and southern alike, were united in op- 
position to it; and, in both sections, it was felt that Clay, 
as the accepted head of the party, should give definite 
form to the party views. ^ He yielded to the demands of 
the delegations sent to solicit his aid, and agreed to speak 
at Lexington, on November 13, 1847. 

1 For details of organization of these troops, see "Annals of Kentucky," 
Collins, I, p. 55. Captain John S. Williams' Independent Company of Vol- 
unteers from Clark County, Kentucky, had joined Scott's army just before 
the battle of Cerro Gordo, and fought gallantly in that battle. Their leader, 
upon his return to Kentucky, was generally given the title, "Cerro-Gordo" 
Williams. 

2 At 7 A. M., on September 14, 1847, the American flag had been raised over 
the walls of the national palace. Mansfield, p. 303; Scott's Official Report, 
ibid., 304-320. 

3 "Bourne Essays," p. 232. This rejection met with the approval of but one 
member of his cabinet. 

* Smith's "Pohtical History of Slavery," I, p. 89. 



446 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

Upon the appointed day, a vast audience assembled. 
Mr. Clay arose, and, referring to the dismal weather,^ 
likened it to the " condition of our country in regard to the 
unnatural war with Mexico, ..." the consequences of 
which are "menacing the harmony, if not the existence, 
of our union." 

He declared the war to have been brought on by deceit, 
and that Congress ought at once to disclaim any wish to 
gain territory for the purpose of propagating slavery, and 
should announce exactly the objects of the war, control 
the President in- the prosecution of it, and explicitly dis- 
claim any idea of annexing Mexico. At the close of the 
speech, his views, embodied in a series of eight resolu- 
tions,^ were submitted to the meeting and enthusiastically 
adopted. | 

These resolutions assign the annexation of Texas as the J 
cause of the war, but declare the immediate occasion of it 
to have been the removal of General Taylor and his army 
from Corpus Christi to a point opposite Matamoras. 
This removal, made by order of the President, without 
the concurrence of Congress, is declared to have been 
improvident and unconstitutional, and, the resolutions 
add, it is the right and duty of Congress "to declare by 
some authentic act, for what purposes and objects the 
existing war ought to be further prosecuted," and to see 
that the President continue it for no other purposes or 
objects. As any purpose of annexing Mexico to the 
United States, is "wholly incompatible with the genius 



1 Text, "Last Years of Henry Clay," Colton, pp. 60-67. See also Sargent's 
"Clay " pp. 105 et seq. 

2 Text of the Resolutions, Sargent's "Clay," pp. 107-108; also Colton's 
" Last Years of Henry Clay," pp. 67-69. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR WTTH MEXICO 447 

of our government [we] wish only a just and proper fixa- 
tion of the Hmits of Texas. . . . [and] positively and em- 
phatically disclaim and disavow any wish or desire . . . 
to acquire any foreign territory whatever, for the purpose 
of propagating slavery, or of introducing slaves from the 
United States, into such foreign territory." 

This last section comes very close to the idea which a 
young Democrat, David Wilmot of Pennsylvania, had 
recently advocated in Congress.^ He had urged, as an 
amendment to a bill, providing money for purchasing 
territory from Mexico, that all territory which should 
be acquired from Mexico should be forever consecrated 
to freedom. If Clay had taken his stand definitely upon 
this doctrine, he might have made of the Whig party, 
what the Republican party was soon to become, an or- 
ganization pledged to prevent the extension of "the 
peculiar institution,"^ and might thus have given it per- 
manency: but with what has come to be called "Royal 
Harry's Luck," Clay missed this golden opportunity, and 
his party missed a glorious destiny. 

His speech and the resolutions, however, struck a sym- 
pathetic chord in the hearts of multitudes of American 
citizens throughout the country. They summed up and 
set in order the position of a large part of the opposition, 
and had the effect of influencing the public men of Mexico 
"in favor of temperate and pacific counsels." ^ 

On December 20, 1847, an immense meeting was held 
at the Tabernacle in New York City, and resolutions were 

1 Details of Wilmot Proviso. Schouler, V, pp. 66-70. 

2 Webster evidently sav^^ this as the wise policy for his party, for, in speaking 
of the Wilmot Proviso and the Democrats he declared: " It is not their thunder." 
Schouler, V, p. 68. 

3 Sargent's "Clay," p. 108. 



448 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

passed,^ which showed how powerfully Clay's words and 
resolutions had affected the "Empire State." "The 
spirit now dominant in the national councils, and rampant 
throughout the land," these resolutions declare, "not only 
mocks at gray hairs and tramples on the lessons of ex- 
perience, but regards with impatience and ill-disguised 
contempt every appeal to considerations of morality, phi- 
lanthropy, or religion, in regard to the prosecution or 
termination of the war. ... 

"In this crisis a voice from the West reaches the ear 
and fixes the regard of the American people. A venerable 
patriot, illustrious by forty years of eminent service in 
the national councils, emerges from his honored seclusion 
to address words of wise admonition to his fellow citizens. 
That voice, which never counselled aught to dishonor or 
injure this Union, is lifted up, probably for the last time, 
in exposure of the specious pretext on which this war was 
commenced, in reprehension of its character and objects, 
and in remonstrance against its further prosecution. At 
the sound of that impressive voice, the scales of delusion 
fall from thousands of flashing eyes, the false glitter of 
the conqueror's glory vanishes, revealing the hideous line- 
aments of carnage. ..." 

This was precisely what Henry Clay was vainly trying 
to believe; but the "glitter of the conqueror's glory" was 
not, in fact, so easily to be disposed of. General Taylor 
had been brought forward by Kentucky, as the candidate 
for the Whig nomination, ^ and his military glory was his 
chief asset. Men, who had been life-long followers of Clay, 
were now turning their eyes to the "rising star." "I pre- 

1 Text, Colton's "Last Years of Henry Clay," pp. 72-73. 

2 Schurz's "Clay," II, p. 293. 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR WITH MEXICO 449 

fer Mr. Clay to all men for the Presidency," wrote John J. 
Crittenden, "but my conviction, my involuntary con- 
viction, is that he cannot be elected." ^ 

At first Crittenden's attitude had been regarded by 
Clay's managers as a political move to gain some advan- 
tage for Clay, and it was hardly taken seriously. "Is it 
possible," wrote J. L. White to Clay, "that the recent 
movement in Kentucky [has] been made after consulta- 
tion with you, and approved by you .? " ^ 

But Clay soon relieved any doubts upon this subject. 
The Taylor movement in Kentucky was both inexplicable 
and abhorrent to him. "Why is it," he wrote, "after 
the long period of time during which I have had the 
happiness to enjoy the friendship and confidence of that 
State, what have I done, ... to lose it.?"^ The reply 
was not difl&cult. The Whigs were eager for victory, and, 
with the hero of Buena Vista at their head, victory seemed 
certain. It was the "glitter of the conqueror's glory" 
that had done it all. 

Taylor himself, at first, failed to realize his own strength 
as a political figure. He had spent his life in camp, and 
had never been called upon even to cast a ballot for the 
one party or the other; but he had been an ardent ad- 
mirer of Clay, and thus could qualify as a Whig. The 
idea of standing as a candidate in place of "The Great 
Commoner" troubled him. On November 4, 1847, he 
had written to Clay, describing a recent conversation with 

1 J. J. Crittenden to A. T. Burnley, Washington, January 8, 1848. Cole- 
man's "Crittenden," I, p. 290. 

2 J. L. White to Henry Clay, September, 1S47. Coleman's "Crittenden," 
I, p. 282. 

3 Henry Clay to H. T. Duncan, Washington, February 15, 1848. Text, 
Colton's "Private Correspondence of Henry Clay," p. 554. 

Kentucky — 29 



450 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

a "mutual friend." ^ "I stated to him specifically that I 
was ready to stand aside, if you or any other Whig were 
the choice of the party, and that I sincerely hoped such 
might be their decision." But, as the movement in his 
favor spread from Kentucky to the other States, Taylor 
began to look more seriously upon the question, and, on 
April 30, 1848, he wrote to Clay again, but in a very dif- 
ferent tone: 

"The people, called together in primary assemblies in 
several of the States have nominated me. I therefore now 
consider myself in the hands of the people." ^ This meant 
that General Taylor had outlived his earlier modesty and 
was in the race to win, even against "The Great Com- 
moner" himself.^ 

The Whig National Convention met at Philadelphia, on 
June 7, 1848, and the first ballot showed that the hero of 
Buena Vista was the man of the hour. With one hun- 
dred and eleven votes against Clay's ninety-seven, and 
with Scott and Webster at a safe distance behind both, it 
was generally acknowledged that Taylor controlled the 
situation. Clay had failed to carry the Ohio delegation,^ 
and seven of the twelve Kentucky delegates had sustained 
Taylor. Upon the second and third ballots, Taylor steadily 
drew off the Clay delegates, until, on the fourth, he re- 

1 Taylor to Clay, Camp near Monterey, November 4, 1847. Colton's 
"Private Correspondence of Henry Clay," pp. 548-549. 

2 Taylor to Clay, Baton Rouge, La., April 30, 1848. Colton's "Private 
Correspondence of Henry Clay," pp. 557-560. 

3 In a letter to James Lynch and others, dated Ashland, September 20, 
1848, Clay indignantly declared: "In his letter to the Richmond 'Republican,' 
of the 2oth of April last, he [General Taylor] declared his purpose to remain a 
candidate, no matter what nomination might be made by the Whig convention." 

4 It supported Scott. Table showing each of the four ballots, etc., Collins, 
I> P- 57- 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR WITH MEXICO 45 1 

ceived one hundred and seventy-one, while Clay's follow- 
ing had dropped to thirty-two. This meant a nomination, 
and the Whigs throughout the country rallied enthusias- 
tically to the support of "the General who never surren- 
ders." 

In Kentucky, the campaign orators added the local 
touch, speaking of "Old Rough and Ready, forty years a 
Kentuckian;" and strong pressure was brought to bear 
upon Henry Clay to induce him to support his successful 
rival. " I have been much importuned," he wrote ^ " . . . 
to endorse General Taylor as a good Whig. . . . But how 
can I do that ? Can I say that in his hands Whig measures 
will be safe and secure, when he refuses to pledge him- 
self to their support . . . when he is presented as a non- 
party candidate. ... I lost the nomination ... by the 
conduct of the majorities in the delegations from Ken- 
tucky . . . and I am called upon to ratify what they 
did ... I am asked to sanction and approve the course 
of the seven delegates from Kentucky who, in violation 
of the desire of their constituents, voted against me, and 
virtually to censure and condemn the five who voted for 
me." 

To James Harlan, who alone of the Kentucky delegation 
had voted for him on the final ballot, Clay wrote :^ "In 
November, if I am spared, I shall, with all the lights then 
before me, go to the polls and vote for that candidate 
whose election I believe will be least prejudicial to the 
country. Of course I can never vote for Cass." 

With the Democratic nominee, Cass, thus definitely ex- 

1 Clay to a committee of Louisville, Ashland, June 28, 1848. Colton's 
"Private Correspondence of Henry Clay," p. 566. 

2 Clay to James Harlan, Ashland, June 22, 1848. Colton's "Private Cor- 
respondence of Henry Clay," p. 565. 



452 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

eluded; and the Whig nominee, Taylor, apparently dis- 
qualified, as not being a Whig, it is difficult to determine 
how he decided the question. It is, however, unlikely that 
he cast his vote for Martin Van Buren, the candidate of 
the Free Soil party, in spite of the attractiveness of his plat- 
form, " Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men;" 
for Mr. Clay always declined to believe that Van Buren 
possessed the abilities requisite for a successful President. 

In the election of November, 1848, General Taylor 
gained his last victory,^ and it was also the last that the 
Whigs, as a national party, were destined to achieve. In 
the heat of the campaign. Clay had declared, "I fear that 
the Whig party is dissolved ... I am compelled most 
painfully, to believe that the Whig party has been over- 
thrown by a mere personal party, just as much having 
I that character as the Jackson party possessed it twenty 
I years ago." ^ The statement was measurably true: the 
I process of disintegration had set in, the dissolution of the 
party had begun, and its end was not far off.^ 

Meanwhile the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo had been 
signed, and peace proclaimed between Mexico and the 
United States of America.^ By this treaty, Mexico ceded 

1 Upon the Cass ticket, as candidate for Vice President, the Democrats had 
placed another well known Kentuckian, General William O. Butler, but his in- 
fluence was not sufficient seriously to endanger the Whig majorities in Ken- 
tucky. Taylor and Fillmore carried the State by a popular majority of 17,524, 
as against the popular majority of 9,267 which she had given Clay and Freling- 
huysen in 1844. Collins, I, pp. 50, 57. 

2 Clay to a committee of Louisville, Ashland, June 8, 1848. Colton's "Pri- 
vate Correspondence of Henry Clay," p. 567. 

3 As soon as the slavery questions began to dominate American politics, 
the Whig party was powerless, as the southern Whigs were for the protection 
of slavery and the northern Whigs against it. Schurz's "Clay," II, p. 313. 

4 Text of President's Proclamation of Peace and text of the treaty. Mans- 
field, pp. 332-347- 



KENTUCKY IN THE WAR WITH MEXICO 453 

to the United States the vast domain, from which have 
since been formed New Mexico, CaHfornia, Nevada, Utah, 
Arizona and parts of Colorado and Wyoming, a territory 
equal in area to Germany, France and Spain together, 
greater than the United States in 1783, and almost as large 
as the Louisiana Purchase. 

"This surface," says Mansfield,^ "makes 630,000 square 
miles, equal in space to fifteen large States! But will the 
greater part of this vast space ever be inhabited by any 
but the restless hunter and the wandering trapper ? 
Two hundred thousand square miles of this territory, in 
New California, has been trod by the feet of no civilized 
being. . . . Two hundred thousand square miles more 
are occupied with broken mountains and dreary wilds. 
But little remains, then, for civilization. Of that little, 
however, there is a future value which may not now be 
counted, in the fine ports and broad coast which look out 
on the noble Pacific. Beyond that live four hundred 
millions of the human race. Soon their minds, as well 
as their commerce and their kingdoms, will be open to the 
purer and brighter light of Christianity. We shall hurry 
the men and the produce of our land, in mighty railways to 
the Pacific! Great cities we shall have there! Nations 
will come to us, and we shall go to them. And this con- 
tinent will be the highway for the multitudes of the world, 
and the glorious light of Christian Progress." 

These predictions have been largely fulfilled, but had 
their author foreseen, with equal clearness, the dark 
shadow of civil strife which lay between him and the ful- 
fillment of his prophecy, he would have used more sombre 
colors in the painting of his picture. 

1 "Mexican War," p. 350. 



CHAPTER XIV 

LAST DAYS OF THE " GREAT COMMONER" 

With the transference by Mexico of the territory 
granted to us in the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo, arose 
the question as to whether or not slavery should be al- 
lowed within its borders. Those who opposed the ex- 
tension of slavery into this new domain, had what they 
considered an unanswerable argument upon which to 
base their contention. As the laws of Mexico provide for 
freedom within her territory, they said, California and 
New Mexico are already assured freedom from the in- 
stitution of slavery. These are conquered regions, and 
the Laws of Nations provide that "the laws of all con- 
quered countries remain until changed by the conqueror." ^ 
This is now the law, and will remain the law until the 
United States explicitly repeals it. 

This argument, Calhoun and his pro-slavery followers 
were prepared to meet. As soon as the territory was 
ceded to the United States, argued the former, the au- 
thority of Mexico ceased, and that of the United States 
and her Constitution supplanted it. All laws not con- 
sistent with that Constitution, therefore, at once became 
void. The law excluding slavery is contrary to that Con- 
stitution, which recognizes slavery; therefore, the Mexican 
laws are void, and slavery has a right in the new territory. 

1 Rhodes', "United States Since the Compromise of 1850," I, p. 94; John- 
ston's "American PoUtical History" (Woodburn Ed.), II, pp. 120-121. 

454 



LAST DAYS OF THE "GREAT COMMONER" 455 

Neither Congress, nor the inhabitants of the region, nor 
the territorial legislatures have power to exclude it. 

Acting upon this theory, the United States Senate, still 
controlled by the pro-slavery interests, proceeded to show 
how it wished the question handled. The House had 
passed a bill providing for a territorial government for 
the Oregon Territory, and prohibiting slavery within it. 
The Senate, instead of passing this bill, as the House had 
sent it up, tacked on an amendment providing for the 
extension of the Missouri Compromise line (36° 30') to 
the Pacific Ocean. ^ The establishment of such a line 
would, of course, have opened to slavery that part of the 
new territory that was thought to be fitted for slave labor. 

This amendment, the House declined to accept, and after 
considerable dispute, the Senate had to yield, and the 
Oregon Territory was organized with slavery prohibited.^ 

The question of what should be done in the new terri- 
tory was thus left undetermined, and, before Congress 
again took it up, a wonderful change had been wrought 
by the discovery of gold in California, a change which 
settled the question of slavery, so far as California was 
concerned, and settled it in a way unfavorable to the 
slave-holding interests. 

The story of the " Forty-Niners," as they were called, 
is the story of probably the most remarkable migration 
and growth of a political community in all history. Early 
in January, 1848, a mechanic named Marshall, who was 
engaged in building a sawmill upon the Sacramento 
River,^ noticed in the mill stream some yellow deposit 

1 Rhodes, I, p. 96. 

2 Ibid. 

3 H. H, Bancroft's "History of the Pacific States," XVIII, p. 28. 



456 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

which the water had brought down. He gathered a 
pouch of it and took it to his Swiss employer, Captain Sut- 
ter, who appHed such tests as he knew, and satisfied him- 
self that it was gold.^ 

The two men agreed to keep secret the discovery, until 
they could secure possession of the tract where it had been 
made; but, in their eagerness to gain possession, the secret 
leaked out, and, within four months, thousands had en- 
tered the region.^ Some worked at random with pick and 
shovel. Some washed the river sand, painfully separating 
the gold dust from the trash, while others crawled into the 
crevasses of the rocks and picked out gold nuggets,^ weigh- 
ing, as Colonel Mason's report states, from one to six 
ounces. The few towns along the Pacific Coast were de- 
populated of their male inhabitants, and crowds hastened 
over the borders from Mexico. 

Colonel Mason's report reached the War Department 
at Washington in December, 1848, and was published 
with President Polk's indorsement. The American and 
European presses took it up, and vast crowds made ready 
to migrate. Capitalists prepared vessels to carry the ad- 
venturers around Cape Horn, and wagons for making 
the trip to California overland; but many, unwilling to 
wait for spring, made their way to Central America, 
crossed the Isthmus, and waited for the first Pacific mail 
steamer .which had left New York the previous October. 
She had started without a passenger for California, but, 



1 Schouler, V, p. 133. 

2 "Arrivals in 1848 have as a rule been overestimated," says H. H. Ban- 
croft, XVIII, p. 71. " News did not reach the outside world in time for people 
to come from a distance during that year." 

3 H. H. Bancroft's "History of the Pacific States," XVIII, pp. 87, 115, etc. 




LAST DAYS OF THE "GREAT COMMONER" 457 

in January when she reached Panama, she found fifteen 
hundred waiting to embark,^ only one-thirtieth of whom 
could be supplied with staterooms. 

As soon as spring came, swarms of gold seekers began 
the tedious journey overland in wagons, and, in spite of 
the tremendous difficulties of such an expedition, forty- 
two thousand made the overland journey in 1849, and 
thirty-nine thousand reached California by sea.^ Pesti- 
lence and starvation followed in their course, and crimes 
of all sorts prevailed in the new country, where few laws 
and no civil government as yet existed. 

The growth of population was almost incredible. The 
town of San Francisco, which in February, 1849, numbered 
only two thousand, closed the year with a population 
of ten times that number,^ and the California region, 
which, at the beginning of the year 1848, was a thinly 
settled territory of little importance, had become suffi- 
ciently populous by May, 1849, to be eligible for state- 
hood. 

Compelled by necessity to establish some sort of gov- 
ernment, and inspired by a suggestion from the new Pres- 
ident, Taylor,** they held a Convention (September- 
October, 1849), drafted a Constitution prohibiting slavery 
within the State,^ and sent a formal petition to Washing- 

1 H. H. Bancroft's "History of the Pacific States," XVIII, pp. 129-130. 

2 Rhodes, I, p. 113; H. H. Bancroft, XVIII, p. 159. 

3 Schouler, V, p. 141. 

4 In April, 1849, Taylor had sent Butler King of Georgia as his messenger 
to urge the Californians to draft a State constitution, but he gave them no ad- 
vice about what to do concerning slavery. Von Hoist, HI, p. 461, and Taylor's 
Message to the Senate, January 23, 1850. Text Richardson's "Messages and 
Papers," V, p. 27. 

5 This achievement, Von Hoist (III, p. 463) describes as "the most magnifi- 
cent illustration of the wonderful capacity of this people for self-government." 



458 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

ton, asking that California be admitted to the Union as a 
free State. ^ 

This petition greatly alarmed the slave States, which 
at once issued protests against allowing California thus 
to exclude from her borders the southern immigrant, 
as they declared the rejection of the "peculiar institu- 
tion" would do. The northern States responded with 
spirited declarations in favor of the principle of the 
Wilmot Proviso, and the South again replied with 
threats of secession, unless her "rights" in the new 
region should be respected. It was evident, even to 
those unskilled in political affairs, that the application 
of California was likely to precipitate a dangerous 
crisis. 

After his humiliating defeat in the Whig Convention 
of 1848, Henry Clay had retired from public life, and, but a 
few months later, had sent to his friend, Richard Pindell, 
a letter which seems written as a farewell manifesto upon 
the slavery question.^ "The principle," he said, "on 
which it [slavery] is maintained would require that one 
portion of the white race should be reduced to bondage to 
serve another portion of the same race, when black sub- 
jects of slavery could not be obtained." . . . "In Africa" 
he added, "where they may entertain as great a preference 
for their color as we do for ours, they would be justified in 
reducing the white race to slavery in order to secure the 
blessings which that state is said to diffuse. . . . Nay, 
further, if the principle be applicable to races and nations, 
what is to prevent its being applied to individuals ^ And 

1 Blaine's "Twenty Years in Congress," I> p. 90. 

2 It does not appear in Colton's Collection; but is quoted in Schurz's " Clay," 
II, p. 316. 



LAST DAYS OF THE "GREAT COMMONER" 459 

then the wisest man in the world would have the right to 
make slaves of all the rest of mankind." 

It was this bold doctrine, doubtless, which called forth 
the resolution, [passed unanimously by the Kentucky Leg- 
islature, about a month after Clay's letter was written,^] 
which declared: "That we, the Representatives of the 
people of Kentucky, are opposed to abolition or emancipa- 
tion of slavery in any form or shape whatsoever, except 
as now provided for by the Constitution and laws of the 
State." ^ This was followed, a few days later, by the 
amendment of the Law of 1833 so as to no longer pro- 
hibit persons from purchasing slaves, and bringing them 
into the State for their own use.^ 

But, in spite of Clay's openly expressed aversion to 
slavery, and their own equally open support of it, the 
Kentucky General Assembly demanded his services as 
Senator from Kentucky,^ and he accepted the election 
which had been made, "without any solicitation from me, 
without my being a candidate, and with the knowledge 
of a strong disinclination on my part to return to that 
body." ^ This election was but the expression of a gen- 
eral feeling that he, only, could solve the problems which 
the new slave complications had presented to the country. 
Well stricken in years and broken in health though he 
was. Clay's mind was as alert and his interest in the 
welfare of his country as active as ever. He felt that 
the Union was in danger from the set antagonism be- 

1 Passed February 3, 1849. Collins, I, p. 58. 

2 Collins, I, p. 58. 

3 Ibid. 

* His election occurred on February i, 1849. 

5 Clay to Thos. B. Stevenson, New Orleans, January 31, 1849. Colton's 
"Private Correspondence of Henry Clay," p. 584. 



460 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

tween the friends and the opponents of the extension ot 
slavery, and he had sacrificed his own incHnations to its 
welfare.^ 

At heart Mr. Clay was in sympathy with the Wilmot 
Proviso, and he believed it the duty of the South to yield 
to its principle. Whether they admit it or not, he wrote,^ 
"it will nevertheless prevail, and the conflict . . . will 
either lead to a dissolution of the Union, or deprive it 
of that harmony which alone can make the Union de- 
sirable. It will lead to the formation of a Sectional and 
Northern party, which will . . . take permanent and ex- 
clusive possession of the government." 

Such were the thoughts of the "Great Commoner" as he 
passed eastward to the scene of his last great compromise. 
He went, not as an irate opponent of the man who oc- 
cupied the coveted position at the head of a Whig ad- 
ministration, but, as one "endeavoring to throw oil upon 
the troubled waters." 

In the thirty-first Congress, old political divisions were 
for the moment obliterated. "Up to this time," wrote 
Clay, on December 4,^ there is no organization of the 
House, which is in a very curious state. Neither party 
has a majority, and divisions exist in each; so that no one 
can foresee the -final issue." Here the old " Triumvirate," 
Clay, Webster, and Calhoun, met together for the last 
time, waiting for the question which all saw must come, 

1 "God knows that I have no personal desire to return ... [to the Senate], 
nor any private or ambitious purposes to promote by resuming a seat in it," he 
had written to his faithful friend, James Harlan, dated New Orleans, Janu- 
ary 26, 1849. Colton's "Private Correspondence of Henry Clay," p. 583. 

2 Quoted, Schurz's "Clay," II, p. 324. It does not appear among Mr. Clay's 
published letters. 

3 Clay to his son James, Washington, December 4, 1849. Colton's " Pri- 
vate Correspondence of Henry Clay," p. 590. 



LAST DAYS OF THE "GREAT COMMONER" 461 

"What is to be the compensation to the slave States for 
giving up their interest in Cahfornia ?" 

President Taylor's opening message was cautious.^ 
He approached the question of the admission of Cali- 
fornia as one who knew the dangers lurking behind that 
proposition. Admit California, he urged, but avoid the 
discussion of "those exciting topics of sectional character 
which 1iave hitherto produced painful apprehensions in 
the public mind." As New Mexico was expected soon to 
present herself for admission to the Union, he advised 
that she be left quiet under her existing military govern- 
ment, and not be dragged into the discussions of Con- 
gress, until her application for statehood should be made. 
A few days later, he sent a special message ^ to Congress 
suggesting that the claims of Texas, to a part of New 
Mexico, could, readily be determined by judicial process, 
when the. question of her admission should come before 
Congress, but could not be easily disposed of at present. 

Taylor was wise ^ in wishing Congress to act upon 
what was actually before it, and to avoid complicating 
Congressional action; but it was vain to hope that this 
topic could be avoided. The whole country was waiting 
impatiently to see what would be done. The South was 
prepared to demand adequate compensation for allow- 
ing the addition of California to the already superior 
power of the North, and this must necessarily involve the 

1 First Annual Message, December 4, 1849. Text Richardson's "Messages 
and Papers," V, pp. 9-24. 

2 January 23, 1850. Text Richardson's "Messages and Papers," V, pp. 26- 
30; Schouler, V, pp. 162-163, for full analysis of the President's plan. 

3 "General Taylor's object," wrote Governor Crittenden (Coleman's "Crit- 
tenden," I, p. 369), "was to avoid and suppress agitation by inaction, and by 
leaving the slavery question to be settled by the people of the respective terri- 
tories." 



462 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

question of what was to be done with the rest of the new 
territory. "I do not . . . hesitate to avow before this 
House and the country," cried Toombs, "and in the 
presence of the hving God, that if by your legislation you 
seek to drive us from the territories of California and New 
Mexico, purchased by the common blood and treasure of 
the whole people, and to abolish slavery in this dis- 
trict, ... I am for disunion." ^ 

Clay had worked out an elaborate plan by which he 
felt certain of permanently settling the question to the 
satisfaction of both parties. This plan he had carefully 
explained to Webster ^ who was still deliberating upon 
it. On January 29, 1850, he presented it to the Senate, 
introducing it as a plan, "for the peace, concord, and 
harmony of these States, to settle and adjust amicably all 
existing questions of controversy between them, arising 
out of the institution of slavery." ^ 

His suggestions were presented in eight articles, pro- 
viding that: 

I. California be admitted with her free Constitution. 

H. That, as slavery does not now exist and is not likely 
to appear in the territory acquired from Mexico, terri- 
torial governments should be established there without 
any restrictions as to slavery. 

HI. That the disputed boundaries between Texas and 
New Mexico should be determined.^ 

1 December 13, 1849. Speech in House, "Congressional Globe," ist Sess., 
31st Cong., p. 28. 

2Curtis's "Webster," II, pp. 397-398, gives details of the interview, and 
prints an account of it given by one who was present. 

3 Text Mallory's "Life and Speeches of Henry Clay," I, pp. 602-606, and 
Colton's "Last Seven Years of Henry Clay," pp. 1 14-124. 

* Colton's "Speeches of Henry Clay," II, pp. 482-508, for Clay's views 
upon this boundary question. 



I 

I 

1 

i 

i 



LAST DAYS OF THE "GREAT COMMONER" 463 

IV. That the debt of Texas, acquired before her an- 
nexation, should be assumed by the Federal Government 
if she will give up her claims upon New Mexico. 

V. That slavery in the District of Columbia should 
not be abolished, unless compensation be given to the 
owners of slaves, and, unless Maryland and the inhabitants 
of the District consent. 

VI. That the bringing of slaves into the District of 
Columbia, from States or places beyond its limits, to be 
sold there, or transported thence to other markets, should 
be prohibited. 

VII. That more effective provision should be made, 
according to the requirements of the Constitution, for the 
restitution of slaves escaping from any State into another 
State or territory. 

VIII. That Congress has no power to prohibit or 
obstruct the trade in slaves between the slave holding 
States; but that the admission or exclusion of slaves, 
brought from one into another of them, depends exclu- 
sively upon their own particular law. 

In introducing these compromise propositions. Clay 
made a series of comments ^ which showed that he be- 
lieved that, with the North "this question was an ab- 
straction, while with the people of the South it was a prin- 
ciple involving their property . . . prosperity and peace." ^ 

A few days after the introduction of these Compromise 
Resolutions, Clay was assigned the floor to defend them.^ 
It was evident, to all who saw him that morning, that his 

1 The substance is given in Mallory's "Life and Speeches of Henry Clay," 
II, pp. 601-606. The exact words are not preserved. 

2 Mallory, II, p. 605. 

3 February 5 and 6, 1850. His speech is given in full in Colton's "Last 
Seven Years of Henry Clay," Appendix, pp. 302-345. 



464 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

health was faihng rapidly. He was so weak that he could 
not ascend the steps of the Capitol without assistance.^ 
He knew that his days were numbered, and came to make 
his last speech for union and peace. 

The galleries of the Senate Chamber were crowded 
with interested spectators, drawn thither by Clay's great 
reputation, and the general interest in the subject under 
consideration. 

As he spoke, his physical vigor seemed to return, and, 
hour after hour, he urged the advantages of his com- 
promise measures. "What do you want who reside in 
the free States ?" he said. "You want that there shall be 
no slavery introduced into the Territories acquired from 
Mexico. Well, have you not got it in California already, 
if admitted as a State ? Have you not got it in New Mex- 
ico, in all human probability also ? . . . You have got 
what is worth a thousand Wilmot Provisos. You have 
got nature itself on your side. You have the fact itself on 
your side. You have the truth staring you in the face 
that no slavery is existing there. . . ." 

When he came to the discussion of his seventh ar- 
ticle, which provided for a more stringent Fugitive Slave 
Law, his remarks were as pleasing to the South as if 
Calhoun himself had dictated them. 

"It is our duty to make the Law more effective," he 
said; "and I shall go with the Senator . . . who goes 
farthest in making penal laws and imposing heaviest 
sanctions for the recovery of fugitive slaves. "' 

1 See letter of C. Cornell Van Arsdale, written August 2, 1852, to Hon. Theo- 
dore Frelinghuysen. Text Colton's " Last Seven Years of Henry Clay," pp. 129- 

131- 

2 From speech on February 6. Colton's " Last Seven Years of Henry Clay," 

P- 3o°- 



LAST DAYS OF THE "GREAT COMMONER" 465 

This statement sounds insincere, when uttered by a man 
who had recently declared, "no earthly power can ever 
compel me to vote for the positive introduction of slavery 
either North or South of the Missouri Compromise" 
line; ^ but Clay was quite right, and his two statements are 
entirely harmonious. An effective fugitive slave law was 
necessary under the Constitution, ^ and the one then in 
operation was far from effective. It had been enacted 
by Congress in 1793, and required the help of State officials 
for the returning of fugitive slaves; but, as the abolition 
spirit had advanced, there had grown up, in many of the 
free States, a determination not to obey the Constitution, 
or the law passed to carry the Constitution into effect. 
Massachusetts and Pennsylvania had actually passed laws 
which practically nullified the Fugitive Slave Law within 
their borders.^ For a State to refuse to return fugitive 
slaves was to nullify an act of Congress, and, in effect also, 
to nullify a clause in the Constitution. This was what 
led Clay to express himself so strongly in favor of a strin- 
gent Fugitive Slave Law, and Webster substantially 
agreed with this position. 

Clay's speech was a master effort of the greatest forensic 
orator that our country has produced, and he was well 
within the bounds of modesty when he wrote to his son 
concerning it. "The speech has produced a powerful and 
salutary effect in the country and in Congress." ^ 

The country next waited to hear from the champion of 

1 Mallory's "Life and Speeches of Henry Clay," II, p. 606; Helper's "Im- 
pending Crisis," p. 208. 

2 Cf. Article IV, section II, clause 3, of the Federal Constitution. 

3 Rhodes, I, p. 126. 

* Washington, March 6, 1850. Colton's "Private Correspondence of Henry 
Clay," p. 601. 

Kentucky — 30 



466 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

slavery, states' rights and nullification, but disease and 
infirmity had carried Calhoun beyond the point where 
public debate was possible. On March 4, 1850,^ he ap- 
peared in the Senate Chamber, "swathed in flannels," 
and bringing a carefully written document upon the ques- 
tion at issue, his last plea for what he deemed justice to 
the South. Senator Mason was selected to read it, for 
Calhoun, like Franklin at the close of the Convention of 
1787, dared not undertake the effort of speaking. His 
last illness had already seized upon him, and, before the 
end of the month, his sad and lonely life had closed.- 
Upon this last occasion, he sat "like some disembodied 
spirit reviewing the deeds of the flesh," ^ and heard un- 
moved his own last appeal for his section and her in- 
terests. 

Calhoun was unwilling to accept the President's plan 
or that of Clay.'* Universal discontent, he said, permeates 
the slave States. The equilibrium of the States has been 
broken by unjust encroachments of the Federal Govern- 
ment, by unjust tariff legislation, by the Ordinance of 
1787, and the Missouri Compromises, which cut her off 
from enjoying equal rights in national territory. The 
cords that bind the States together are snapping one by 
one. To save the Union, the dominant North must yield 
to the demands of the slave States. They must grant us 
equal rights in the acquired territory. They must provide 

1 Schouler, V, p. 166; Von Hoist, III, p. 491. 

2 Calhoun died March 31, 1S50. "He was firmly, and I suppose honestly 
persuaded," wrote C. S. Morehead to Crittenden, "that the Union ought to be 
dissolved." Text of letter, Coleman's "Crittenden," I, pp. 361-364. 

3 Schouler, V, p. 166. 

* Von Hoist, III, pp. 491 et seq., for detailed discussion of Calhoun's general 
attitude toward the questions then at issue. 



LAST DAYS OF THE "GREAT COMMONER" 467 

for the return of our fugitive slaves. They must cease to 
agitate the slave question, and they must accept a constitu- 
tional amendment/ which will restore to the South her old 
power of self-protection. "If," he concludes, "you of the 
North will not do this, then let our Southern States sepa- 
rate, and depart in peace." 

Two of the triumvirate had spoken, but the third and 
greatest was still to be heard. Webster was just Calhoun's 
age, but he was still vigorous in body as well as in mind. 
He had thought Clay's proposition through, and, on 
/ March 7, 1850, he appeared in its defence. The speech 
which he made upon this occasion, he himself considered 
the master effort of his eventful life. It ranks as the mas- 
terpiece of American oratory, and is the only speech in our 
history which is known by the day of its delivery, "The 
Seventh of March Speech." ^ It sweeps majestically along, 
deep and comprehensive in its scope, expanding, in a strik- 
ing manner, many ideas which Clay had already brought 
forward. It aided tremendously the final success of Clay's 
1 Compromise, but it brought upon the head of its author 
the fiercest denunciations of his northern constituency, 
who saw in it only a bid for southern support for his 
presidential aspirations. Theodore Parker compared 
Webster's position upon this occasion to that of Benedict 
Arnold after the attempted betrayal of West Point. Hor- 
ace Mann described him as "a fallen star, Lucifer de- 
scending from heaven," while the gentle Whittier, in 

1 Calhoun's "Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United 
States" (1849), explains in full his ideas as to how to "restore to the South .... 
the power she possessed for protecting herself." One of the ideas there ex- 
pressed is the creation of two Presidents, one chosen by each section, and each 
with a veto upon acts of Congress. Von Hoist, III, pp. 494-495, for analysis. 

2 Text Webster's Works, 1866 Ed., V, pp. 324 et seq. 



468 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

"Ichabod," mourns the statesman whose faith and honor 
have perished. 

"So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn 
Which once he wore! 
The glory from his gray hairs gone 
Forevermore ! " 

Of the other memorable speeches, called forth by Clay's 
propositions, the most important was that of William H. 
Seward ^ against the Compromise, in which he used the 
phrase which became a watchword of anti-slavery, 
"There is a higher Law than the Constitution." ^ 

When the debate was over, Clay's compromise, with 
such other suggestions as had been offered, was referred 
to an elected committee of thirteen, of which Clay was 
chairman, and Webster one of the Whig members.^ 

While this committee was doing its work, there was grave 
uncertainty felt for the future. Chas. S. Morehead wrote 
to Governor Crittenden : ^ " I do most solemnly believe 
that disunion will ensue, and that more speedily than anyjH 
man now has any idea of, if there should be a failure 
of an amicable settlement. ... I feel as you do about 



1 March 11. Text Seward's Works, edited by George E. Baker, 1853, I, 
pp. 51 et seq. 

2 Kentucky, in her Constitution of 1S50, also set up a "higher law theory," 
but of a very different character: "The right of property," it declared, "is before 
and higher than any constitutional sanction; and the right of the owner of a 
slave to such slave and its increase is the same and as inviolable as the right of 
the owner of any property whatsoever." See Johnston's "American Political 
History" (Woodburn Ed.), II, p. 38. 

3 Clay's plan and a plan of Bell of Tennessee were referred on April 19, 
1850. Clay's speech on the reference; Colton's "Speeches of Henry Clay," II, 
pp. 410-418. See also Rhodes, I, p. 171; Blaine, I, p. 94. 

4 Morehead to Crittenden, Washington, March 3c, 1850. Coleman's "Crit- 
tenden," I, pp. 361 et seq. 






i 



LAST DAYS OF THE "GREAT COMMONER" 469 

the Union, as I know that Kentucky does, and it must 
be preserved at the sacrifice of all past party ties." 

On May 8th, Clay presented the report of the committee 
of thirteen, which was substantially the plan of compromise 
contained in his original resolutions, together with a bill 
for carrying them into effect.* The propositions were, 
however, differently arranged. First there was the so- 
called "Omnibus Bill," which contained the substance of 
Clay's first three propositions. Then there was a bill 
providing for more stringent laws for compelling the re- 
turn of fugitive slaves, the substance of Clay's seventh 
proposition, and finally a bill for excluding the slave 
market from the District of Columbia, the essence of 
Clay's sixth proposition.^ 

In two extended speeches,^ he defended his plan, and 
answered the more important objections which had been 
urged against it. Of President Taylor's plan, he ex- 
pressed open scorn. "I describe it," he said, "by a 
simile, in a manner which can not be misunderstood. 
Here are five wounds, — one, two, three, four, five, — 
bleeding and threatening the well-being, if not the exist- 
ence of the body politic. What is the plan of the Presi- 
dent ? Is it to heal all these wounds ? No such thing. It 
is only to heal one of the five, and to leave the other four 
to bleed more profusely than ever, by the sole admission 

1 Full details of report. Colton's "Last Seven Years of Henry Clay," 
pp. 161 and 359. 

2Schouler, V, p. 178. Text, Colton, Reed, McKinley, "Works of Henry 
Clay," in, pp. 359-362. 

3 May 13 and May 15. (Colton's "Speeches of Henry Clay," II, pp. 426- 
441, and 458-478, for text.) In the latter speech. Clay compared the plan ad- 
vocated by the committee, his own plan, with that of the administration. 
The parallel columns there presented give a condensed view of the two 
positions. 



470 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

of California, even if it should produce death itself. . . . 
He says nothing about the fugitive slave bill, or the Dis- 
trict bill; but he recommends that the other two subjects, 
of territorial government and Texas boundary, remain, 
and be left untouched, to cure themselves by some law of 
nature." ^ 

General Taylor was, indeed, an unexpectedly strong 
barrier in the way of the success of Clay's plans. He felt 
that California had a right to expect prompt admission, 
with the Constitution which represented the deliberate 
choice of her citizens, and he had no patience with plans 
which proposed to make her right an object of bargain be- 
tween the interests or desires of the opposing sections.^ 
But it may be fairly doubted whether even the hostility of 
the executive could have checked the immediate success 
of Clay's plans, had not the form of the committee's report 
worked against it. The "Omnibus Bill," designed to 
secure the support of all who favored any one of its three 
separate items, unexpectedly worked out in just the op- 
posite way. It secured the opposition of all who objected 
to any one of its provisions, and, after two months of de- 
bate,^ it stood stripped, by successive amendments, of all 
its elements, except the item providing territorial govern- 
ment for Utah; in which denuded condition it finally 
passed, on August i.^ 



1 " I had to attack the plan of the administration, . . . ." he wrote a few 
days later, " its course left me no other alternative." Henry Clay to his son 
James, Washington, May 27, 1850. Colton's " Private Correspondence of 
Henry Clay," p. 610. 

2 Schurz's " Clay," H, p. 350. 

3 "Life of William H. Seward," American Statesmen Series, pp. 96-97. 

* Clay, in a speech of that day (Colton's "Speeches of Henry Clay," II, 
pp. 568 et seq.) laid the blame for its loss upon Pearce of Maryland. 



LAST DAYS OF THE "GREAT COMMONER" 471 

During the last debates on the compromise proposals, 
some one spoke of " allegiance to the South." Clay's blood 
rose instantly: "I know no South, no North, no East, no 
West, to which I owe allegiance." These were not the 
words of "Harry of the West," perpetual candidate for 
the highest office in the gift of a nation. They were the 
words of a patriot, purified by suffering, chastened by 
many afflictions, a man, as he himself said, "expecting 
soon to go hence, and owing no responsibility but to my 
own conscience and to God." ^ Against every reference 
to secession, southern patriotism, or contempt for his 
beloved Union, the old man set his face like a flint. His 
burning sentences remind us of the cry of Andrew Jack- 
son against South Carolina, " Disunion by armed force is 
treason." "If my own State," he passionately declared, 
". . . should raise the standard of disunion . . . I would 
go against her; I would go against Kentucky . . . much 
as I love her." ^ 

At length, discouraged by the defeat of his compro- 
mise plans, which he still believed "would have harmo- 
nized ... all the discordant feelings which prevail," ^ 
and shattered by age and growing infirmities. Clay left 
the Capitol in the hope of regaining his health by a visit 
to Newport.^ 

A few days later he wrote to his son, Thomas, and there 
is the ring of triumph in his words, "They are passing 
through the Senate, in separate bills, all the measures of 
our compromise, and if they should pass the House also, 

1 See Schurz, II, pp. 355-356. 

2 Colton's "Speeches of Henry Clay," II, p. 575. 

3 Ibid., p. 568. 

* He left Washington on August 2 and returned in about three weeks. Col- 
ton's " Speeches of Henry Clay," II, p. 576 



472 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

I hope they will lead to all the good effects which would 
have resulted from the adoption of the compromise." ^ 
All his old eagerness now returned and, a few days later, 
he was again in his place in the Senate, superintending 
the process. Before the adjournment of Congress, on 
September 30, the entire program, which he had ad- 
vanced seven months before, had been carried into opera- 
tion.^ 

It was a signal triumph with which to close a great 
public career, but, had President Taylor lived, it is at 
least doubtful whether it could have been achieved. The 
old General, however, had been stricken down in the 
midst of his opposition, and Clay, with no hypocritical 
pretense of sorrow, had written to a kinswoman: To-day 
will "witness the funeral ceremonies of General Tay- 
lor. ... I think the event . . . will favor the passage of 
the compromise bill." ^ 

Clay's relations with the new President, Millard Fill- 
more, were " perfectly friendly and confidential," ■* and, 
by a judicious reorganization of the cabinet, under his 
personal advice, the entire administration was brought 
into harmony with his compromise plans. ^ 

The compromise of 1850, thus accomplished, stilled^ 

1 Dated Newport, August 15, 1850. Colton's "Private Correspondence of 
Henry Clay," p. 612. 

2Schouler, V, pp, 200, 201. Johnston's "American Political History" 
(Woodburn Ed.), II, p. 124, gives dates of passage of each item; Collins, I, p. 60. 

3 Henry Clay to Mrs. Thos. H. Clay, Washington, July 13, 1850. Colton's 
"Private Correspondence of Henry Clay," pp. 610 -611. 

4 Henry Clay to his son Thomas, Philadelphia, August 6, 1850. Colton's 
"Private Correspondence of Henry Clay," p. 611. 

5 Gov. John J. Crittenden of Kentucky was appointed Attorney General, 
Clay generously overlooking the fact that he had been a strong supporter of 
General Taylor in 1848. 



LAST DAYS OF THE "GREAT COMMONER" 473 

for the time, the strife of sections, the South being content 
to rest quiet under its provisions, so long as they should 
be faithfully executed.^ But the seeds of more bitter 
strife lay hidden, and as yet unsuspected, within it. The 
provisions, that any new States formed from Texas should 
be left to decide for themselves concerning slavery, and 
that California should be granted the same privilege,^ 
were certainly inconsistent with the principle which had 
so long stood as the basis of the Missouri Compromise 
of 1820. This latter principle was that Congress has the 
power to determine the status of territories with respect 
to slavery,^ while that of the compromise of 1850 was 
clearly the principle of "popular sovereignty." Out of 
this inconsistency. Senator Stephen A. Douglas, under 
pressure from Clay's successor in the Senate, Archibald 
Dixon, of Kentucky,'* was soon to evolve the theory that 
the Missouri Compromise had been "superseded by the 
principles of the legislation of 1850, . . ." ^ and thereby 



1 Schouler, V, p. 203. 

2 The report of the Committee of Thirteen (Text, Colton, Reed, McKin- 
ley, " Works of Henry Clay," III, p. 359-362), declared: ". . . the true prin- 
ciple which ought to regulate the action of Congress . . . is to refrain from 
all legislation on the subject in the Territory acquired . . . leaving it to the 
people of such Territory ... to decide for themselves the question of the 
allowance or prohibition of domestic slavery . . ." The Texas and New 
Mexico Act (U. S. Stat, at Large, IX, 446 et seq.) expresses the same view, 
in a slightly modified form. 

3 It was even wider. It was, "the supreme control of Congress over the 
Territories." Johnston's "American Political History" (Woodburn Ed.), II, 
p. 120. 

* Dixon's "True History of the Missouri Compromise and its Repeal," 
pp. 441, 449; Blaine, I, p. 113; Collins, I, p. 63, for his election; and ibid., p. 66, 
for contest over securing his seat. 

5 " Congressional Globe," XXVIII, p. 221; Rhodes, I, p. 439. Douglas 
later accepted an amendment substituting for the words, "suspended by," the 
words, "inconsistent with." Smith's "Parties and Slavery," p. 103. 



474 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

rendered inoperative, thus reviving, in the virulent form 
of Civil War in Kansas, the very struggle, to the soothing 
of which Clay had devoted his last public efforts.^ Out 
of this fatal weakness in Clay's great compromise, there- 
fore, was soon to emerge the Kansas-Nebraska bill, a law, 
as Sumner later declared, which "annuls all past com- 
promises with slavery, . . . puts freedom and slavery 
face to face and bids them grapple." ^ 

Had Clay been able to see only four years into the 
future, he would have doubted the wisdom of his last great 
compromise, even as he now doubted the wisdom of the 
two earlier compromises, with which his name was so in- 
extricably linked. But this was mercifully spared him, 
and, as he turned his face westward toward his beloved 
"Ashland," he felt that he had earned the title which 
was everywhere accorded him, of "the Great Pacifi- 
cator." 

The progress of the compromise measures had been 
watched in Kentucky with the keenest interest. Meetings 
had been held, from time to time, in various parts of the 
State, to indicate the popular sentiments in favor of them.^ 
I suspect, however, that the motive which led to many of 
these meetings, was a desire to see Clay's seventh propo- 
sition, providing for a more effective fugitive slave law, 
put into operation. The vastly increased activity of the I 
abolitionists, and the lawless actions of some of the more 
fanatical of them, had led to the escape of considerable 

1 Not the slightest evidence exists, either in the "Omnibus Bill," or in the 
speeches of its advocates, that the intention was to repeal the Missouri Com- 
promise; but in the Texas bill certainly lay the doctrine of "popular sover- 
eignty." 

2 Rhodes, I, p. 490. 

3 Collins, I, p. 60. 



1 



LAST DAYS OF THE "GREAT COMMONER" 475 

numbers of slaves, whose recovery, under existing con- 
ditions, was practically impossible.^ As the abolition 
movement had advanced, its agents had sown the seeds 
of discontent, even in Kentucky, where the mild, do- 
mestic character of the institution was calculated to make 
the slaves happy and contented. With these ardent 
friends of freedom, it was not a question of the degree of 
the evils of slavery. They fought for a principle and, 
wherever that principle was violated, in any degree, they 
unhesitatingly struck. Law, order, private ownership, the 
very Constitution itself were disregarded. Even as the 
revolutionary orator, James Otis, had declared that the 
British Parliament could not legalize tyranny, so the 
abolitionists declared that the Federal Constitution could 
not legalize slavery, as "there is a higher Law than the 
Constitution." To aid the escape of the slave, to set at 
defiance the Fugitive Slave Law, and defend the slave 
when freed, was their program, and they followed it with 
uncompromising persistency. Slave abductors, sometimes 
honest in intention, sometimes corrupt and mercenary, 
were frequently apprehended and punished with severity, 
but the movement could not be crushed. The excesses of 
the abolitionists led to their condemnation by both parties, 
and did irreparable injury to the cause of freedom, but 
they still remained a force which had to be reckoned with, 
and it was no wonder that the people of Kentucky felt 
the importance of enacting more effective fugitive slave 
laws, and enthusiastically approved Clay's attempts to 
accomplish this end. 
The new Fugitive Slave Law, as finally adopted, was far 

1 For full analysis of the old Fugitive Slave Law: Johnston's "American 
Political History" (Woodburn Ed.), II, pp. 129-131. 



476 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

more unjust to the fugitive than that which Clay and his 
committee of thirteen had contemplated; and it aroused a 
storm of denunciation, defiance, and practical nullification, 
among the anti-slavery men, with which even Clay's 
genius was unable to cope. The clause denying trial by 
jury, to the alleged fugitive, was denounced as a violation 
of the Constitution, and even of the sacred Magna Charta 
itself.^ Northern Legislatures passed stronger "personal 
liberty laws" for the express purpose of defying it,^ and 
anti-slavery sympathizers boldly refused to perform the 
duties which it assigned them. 

By the opening of Congress, in December, 1850, re- 
sistance to the Fugitive Slave Law had begun to assume 
violent form, and it is pathetic to think of the aged Clay, 
spending his little residue of life in a vain attempt to 
check the coming storm. And yet the opening of the 
year 1851 saw him at his accustomed place in the Senate, 
urging a defence of the hated law, denouncing "all sorts 
of abolitionists," and pleading for the principles estab- 
lished by his compromise. But the days of his forensic 
triumphs had passed forever. His last extended speech, 
concerning "violations of the Fugitive Slave Law," ^ was 
interesting, but ineffective, a vain appeal for obedience 

1 It was Kentucky's former governor, John J. Crittenden, to whom, as 
Attorney General of the United States, President Fillmore had referred the 
Fugitive Slave Law before giving it his approval. His opinion declared: "There 
is nothing in the act inconsistent with the Constitution, nor which is not neces- 
sary to redeem the pledge which it contains." Text Coleman's "Crittenden," 

I. P- 377- 

2 List of such laws. Johnston's "American Political History" (Woodburn 
Ed.), II, pp. 135-136. 

^Senate, February 21-24, 1851. Colton's "Speeches of Henry Clay," II, 
pp. 609 et seq. His speech on the River and Harbor Bill (Senate, March i and 
3, Colton's "Speeches of Henry Clay," II, pp. 629-632) which followed does 
not concern our narrative, 



LAST DAYS OF THE "GREAT COMMONER" 477 

to a law which did not represent the will of the com- 
munities where it was meant to operate. 

The month of June, 1851, found him at "Ashland" for 
the last time. He had visited Cuba, during the early 
spring, in the hope of freeing himself from a distressing 
cough which was rapidly sapping his vitality,^ but the 
experiment had failed. Even the glittering prize of the 
Presidency could no longer attract him. In response to 
suggestions of a nomination, by friends in New York, he 
issued a positive refusal,^ although the observations in his 
letter of refusal show that he had not loosened his grip 
upon the current of American politics. "I think it quite 
clear," he wrote, "that a Democrat will be elected unless 
that result be prevented by divisions in the Democratic 
party. ..." 

"No candidate, I hope and believe, can be elected who 
is not in favor of the Union, and in favor of the Compromise 
of the last Congress (including the Fugitive Slave Bill), as 
necessary means to sustain it. . . . 

"Besides pre-existing questions, a new one will prob- 
ably arise at the next session of Congress, involving the 
right of any one of the States of the Union, upon its own 
separate will and pleasure, to secede from the residue, and 
become a distinct and independent power. The decision 
of that momentous question can not but exert some in- 
fluence, more or less, upon the next Presidential election. 
For my own part, I utterly deny the existence of any such 
right, and I think an attempt to exercise it ought to be 

1 Mr. Clay to his wife, Washington, March 8, 1851. Colton's "Private 
Correspondence of Henry Clay," p. 615, and letter to Adam Beatty, April 28. 
Ibid. 

2 Clay to Daniel Ullman, Ashland, June 14, 1851. Colton's "Private Cor- 
respondence of Henry Clay," pp. 617-620. 



478 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY - 

resisted to the last extremity; for it is, in part, a question 
of Union or no Union." 

When the time approached for the re-opening of the 
32d Congress,^ Clay started for his post of duty, although 
his strength was fast failing. The circumstances con- 
nected with his final departure from Kentucky, are de- 
scribed by Benjamin F. Penniman in a set of "Remi- 
niscences." ^ 

"On a beautiful Sabbath morning, the i6th day of 
November, 1851, there arrived at the Goddard House in 
the city of Maysville, Ky., a plain carriage, containing two 
persons, with a coachman. One of these persons was 
the feeble and much emaciated Henry Clay, the states- 
man and Senator of Kentucky. The other was his faith- 
ful boy, Charles, his only attendant. . . . The writer was 
invited to Mr. Clay's room, where . . . we . . . found 
him lying upon his bed, much prostrated, but very cheer- 
ful. The conversation drifted gradually into serious fields, 
Mr. Clay remarking, ' There are persons in our country 
who talk about dissolving the Union of the States because 
it is not exactly suited to their ideas of what they call 
free government, or in other words, the independent sov- 
ereignty of the States. . . . To prevent this, and to hold 
every State in its place in the Union, is worth fighting for, 
should it ever be necessary, which may God forbid. The 
Union of these States is worth more than all the blood 
that may be shed to preserve them, for here, in America, 
the first principles of civil and religious liberty were es- 
tablished by our fathers. ... I shall be gone myself, but 
I will not doubt that those who come after me will main- 

1 December, 1851. 
2DurrettMSS., "Clay." 



LAST DAYS OF THE "GREAT COMMONER" 479 

tain the true principles of civil and religious liberty for all 
time to come. . . .' 

"Mr. Clay also said that there were two great questions 
which were constantly exciting the attention of the Amer- 
ican people. . . . Slavery . . . and the great American 
idea of protecting home industry. . . . 

"Of the first he could only say that, being identified with 
it from his earliest recollections, his circumstances in life 
had led him to support it; but, as he grew older, and ac- 
quired more experience, and had observed that slavery 
was incompatible with free institutions like ours, his mind 
on this subject had changed; and he hoped that the dis- 
cernment of those who believed in and advocated slavery 
would lead them finally to do away with the institu- 
tion. . . . This was a question of time, he said, and he 
regretted that he had advocated the Fugitive Slave Law 
because the people did not understand it, and it had 
caused much difficulty. 

"The other question was, said Mr. Clay, the part he 
took in compromising the tariff law, which produced 
nullification in South Carolina. 'For,' said Mr. Clay, 
*if the tariff law was wrong, then it should have been re- 
pealed in toto; by my not advocating its repeal at that 
time, ... I made a fatal mistake.' As it was, he took 
the side of a compromise to quiet South Carolina and 
restore peace to her. But he could not be made to believe 
that a tariff for this purpose was, at any time, right. 
After a few general remarks on the American system, 
Mr. Clay added, 'It is bad enough for individuals to 
compromise, but nations should never do so, especially 
in domestic affairs. It settles nothing, but only secures 
repose for the time being . . .'" (a frank admission for 



480 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

the author of three of the great compromises of our his- 
tory). 

Drifting along with the current of his reflections, 
Mr. Clay's conversation becomes more and more serious 
and interesting, until, as if already conceding that his 
part in the aff'airs of this world had passed, he turned to 
the greatest of all questions, his relation to his God. 

"... 'When we were very young,' he said, 'we looked 
upon time as being very long, and were apt to put off 
matters of great consequence to us.' Although he had 
never forgotten the great Author of his being, he perhaps 
had fallen into this error, growing, perhaps, out of the 
many attractions and excitements that surrounded him; 
but now he said he had found that, as time advanced, and 
he grew older, the attractions of early life grew less, and 
he had not time enough to attend to those matters which 
concerned all so much. 

" 'Respecting our future life,' he said, ... 'I hope 
that I have done some good during the time I have lived, 
and I trust that the attention I have given of late respecting 
my future state will entitle me to a happy home in another 
and better world. There is something within me that 
tells me of a future state. This frail and failing body of 
mine tells me that this is not my home, for, while the body 
fails, the mind grows stronger, and points us to that 
place where we shall forever rest free from all troubles. 
God rules; His hand is in everything, and points to that 
preparation which all should make, not upon the princi- 
ple that there is time enough, but that it is too short. I 
leave myself in the hands of God and his promised love, 
thro' the Redeemer of the World.' " ^ 

1 Soon after receiving the news of the death of his favorite son, Colonel Henry 




Henry Clay as an old man 

From a daguerreotype, now in the possession of Mrs. Robert Dick Wilson, of Prince- 

ton, N. y. 



LAST DAYS OF THE "GREAT COMMONER" 481 

This, so far as we know, was Clay's last conversation 
in his own commonwealth. 

"We placed the great statesman on board the little 
steamer Alleghany Belle, bound for Wheeling, Va., on 
his way to Washington, at ten o'clock at night," con- 
cludes the narrative. "I asked . . . why he was going 
to Washington in such bad health. He said he had a 
'little to say there,' when he would try to get back to 
Kentucky again. We all felt that it was the wish of Mr. 
Clay to close his life with his harness on in Washington." 

Just one month later (December 17, 1851), Mr. Clay 
presented his formal resignation, as Senator for Ken- 
tucky, asking that it take effect on the first day of Septem- 
ber, 1852;^ but, before that date arrived, he died, as he 
had wished to die, at the National Capital (June 29, 
1852),^ "with his harness on." 

Clay's magnificent career is most fittingly summed up 
in the inscription upon a medal of California gold, pre- 
sented to him, a few months before his death,^ by the 
citizens of New York; and few statesmen of any age can 
show such a list of honorable achievements. 

The inscription reads thus: 
"Senate, 1806 
Speaker, 181 1 

War of 1 8 12 with Great Britain 
Ghent, 18 14 

Clay, upon the field of Buena Vista, Clay had entered the Episcopal Church, 
and received the rite of baptism in the presence of his family. Schurz's "Clay," 
II, p. 287. 

1 Collins, I, p. 63. 

2Ibid., p. 65. For letters giving details of Clay's last illness: Mallory, 
pp. 628-636; Colton's "Private Correspondence of Henry Clay," pp. 633-636. 

3 February 10, 1852. 
Kentucky — 31 



482 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

Missouri Compromise, 1821 

Spanish America, 1822 

Greece, 1823 

American System, 1824 

Secretary of State, 1825 

Panama Instructions, 1826 

Tariff Compromise, 1833 

Public Domain, 1833-1841 

Peace with France Preserved, 1835 

Compromise, 1850." ^ 
His was a career far too broad to allow of its being 
claimed as the peculiar property of any locality; but Ken- 
tucky may justly rejoice that her soil was the chosen and 
cherished abode of the "Great Commoner"; and she may 
justly claim some of the glory of his career, when the at- 
tempt is made to estimate her part in the nation's history. 

1 This medal is now in the possession of Mrs. John Clay of Lexington, to 
whose courtesy the author is indebted for the pleasure of inspecting it, and 
numerous other rehcs of the " Great Commoner." 

Clay's letter to Daniel Ullman, dated Ashland, September 26, 185 1 (Col- 
ton's "Private Correspondence of Henry Clay," pp. 620-622), gives Clay's own 
view of the subjects which ought to be engraved on the medal. 



CHAPTER XV 

ATCHISON DIXON AND THE REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI 

COMPROMISE 

The year following the death of Henry Clay is memora- 
ble in our nation's history for the beginning of the now 
famous Nebraska conflict, which opened the final scene 
in the drama of American slavery.^ Clay had gone to his 
last resting place believing that his compromise measures 
of 1850 would prove, "the re-union of this Union." "I 
believe," he had declared,' in one of those figures of speech 
which were so characteristic of him, "that it is the dove 
of peace, which, taking its aerial flight from the dome of 
the capitol, carries the glad tidings of assured peace and 
restored harmony to all the remotest extremities of this 
distracted land." And, in the closing lines of his great 
speech on this Compromise, he had said, "If . . . South 
Carolina or any other State should hoist the flag of dis- 
union and rebellion, thousands, tens of thousands, of Ken- 
tuckians would flock to the standard of their Country to 
dissipate and repress their rebellion. . . ." ^ 

There can be little doubt that these words interpreted 

1 The first suggestion of a territorial organization for the Nebraska country 
was made in the annual report of President Tyler's Secretary of War, William 
Wilkins. The subject had been occasionally discussed since that date, but did 
not attract any considerable interest until 1S53. Full details of earlier bills, 
"Ray's Repeal of the Missouri Compromise," pp. 94-100. 

2 Senate, July 22, 1S50. "Works of Henry Clay," Colton, Reed, McKinley 
Ed., VI, p. 563. 

3 Ibid., p. 567. 

483 



484 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

the spirit of Clay's beloved Commonwealth, with refer- 
erence to the danger that was seen — but an unseen danger 
lay concealed in the "Great Compromise" itself. 

The Report of the Committee of Thirteen declares: 
"To avoid in all future time the agitations which must be 
produced by the conflict of opinion on the slavery ques- 
tion — existing as this institution does, in some of the States, 
and prohibited in others — the true principle which ought 
to regulate the action of Congress, in forming territorial 
governments for each newly acquired domain, is to re- 
frain from all legislation on the subject in the Territory 
acquired, so long as it retains the territorial form of 
government, leaving it to the people of such Territory, 
when they have attained to a condition which entitles 
them to admission as a State, to decide for themselves 
the question of the allowance or prohibition of domestic 
slavery." ^ The meaning of this statement is unmistakable, 
and it is hard to believe that Mr. Clay had failed to see 
its bearing upon the principle at the basis of the Missouri 
Compromise.^ That Compromise had rested upon the 
idea of Congressional control over slavery in the national 
territory, the doctrine known as the doctrine of "Inter- 

iText Colton, Reed, McKinley, "Works of Henry Clay," III, p. 360. 
In this statement, we see the hand of Lewis Cass, father of the doctrine of "Popu- 
lar Sovereignty," who was a member of the Committee of Thirteen. Curtis' 
"Republican Party," I, p. 176, for Cass and the theory. Names of members of 
the Committee of Thirteen, Colton, Reed, McKinley, "Works of Henry Clay," 
VI, p. 427. Clay himself informs us that he had been, during the deliberations 
of the committee, "in repeated consultation [with Cass] . . . and he has 
shown himself to be the friend of the peace of his country." Ibid., Ill, pp. 381- 
382. 

2 That Mr. Clay had in mind a comparison between the conditions of 1820 
and those of 1850 was shown clearly during the debate which followed the 
presentation of the "Omnibus Bill." See "Works of Henry Clay," Colton 
Reed, McKinley Ed., Ill, p. 381. 



MISSOURI COMPROMISE 485 

vention." But the principle laid down in the report of 
the Committee of Thirteen is as clearly that of "Non- 
intervention." The two ideas were certainly inconsistent, 
and, from that fact, much was hoped for by certain am- 
bitious leaders in Congress. 

During recent months, Missouri politics had centered 
largely around the question naturally suggested by this 
inconsistency. The Bentonites, followers of Thomas H. 
Benton, stood firmly in favor of organizing the Nebraska 
Territory under the provisions and restrictions laid upon 
it by the Missouri Compromise, that is, with a positive 
prohibition of slavery. But Benton's sworn enemy and 
political rival, David R. Atchison, a native Kentuckian, 
but now a citizen of Missouri and President pro tempore 
of the United States Senate,^ had staked his political 
future upon a plan to have the Missouri Compromise re- 
strictions declared void, so far as the Nebraska Territory 
was concerned. "... The President of the Senate, 
Mr. Atchison," wrote the Washington correspondent of 
the "Richmond Enquirer," ^ "is pledged by his speeches 
before the people of Missouri to move the repeal of the 
law prohibiting slavery in the territory north of the par- 
allel of 36° 30^" » 

1 As President of the Senate, at the death of Vice President Wm. R. King, 
(April 18, 1853), Atchison had become acting Vice President. Collins, I, p. 66. 

2 Issue of December 26, 1853. See Ray's "Repeal of the Missouri Com- 
promise," p. 198. 

3 The details of the rivalry between Benton and Atchison, the origin of the 
question of repealing the Missouri Compromise line, and its influence on Missouri 
politics are well brought out in a recent work by Perley Orman Ray, Ph. D., 
entitled, "The Repeal of the Missouri Compromise, its Origin and Author- 
ship," Cleveland, Ohio, The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1909. To the author of 
this excellent monograph, I fully acknowledge my indebtedness in the prepara- 
tion of this topic. 



486 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

Stephen A. Douglas, Chairman of the Senate Committee 
on Territories, had just returned from a six months' visit 
to Europe. It is practically certain, from a letter written to 
the editors of the " Illinois State Register," ^ that, a month 
before the opening of Congress, he had no idea that the 
Nebraska question was likely to become prominent dur- 
ing the session, and it was, therefore, somewhat in the 
nature of a surprise to him when, on December 14, 1853, 
Senator Dodge of Iowa presented to the Senate a bill for 
the organization of the Nebraska Territory.^ 

The bill carefully avoided all mention of the question 
of slavery,^ but intelligent observers saw, from the first, that 
that question must ultimately be considered in connection 
with the bill. Only two weeks after it was presented, the 
Washington correspondent of the "Charleston Courier" 
declared:^ "The speeches of Senator Atchison in Mis- 
souri pledge him and his constituents mutually to raise a 
storm here against the slavery restriction when the sub- 
ject of Nebraska Territory shall come up. That the 
question is certain to come off I have heard from all 
quarters." 

Upon Stephen A. Douglas, as chairman of the Senate 
Committee on Territories, fell the lot of considering and 
reporting upon the Dodge bill. His interest in the ques- 
tion was due largely to his position as chairman of the 

1 Washington, November ii, 1853. Full text given in Ray's "Repeal of 
the Missouri Compromise," pp. 185-186. 

2 Notice of the bill had been given, by Senator Dodge, on December 5, 1853 
("Congressional Globe," XXVIII, Pt. I, p. i). A similar bill was presented 
to the House, December 22, 1853, by J. G. Miller of Missouri ("Congressional 
Globe," XXVIII, Pt. I, p. 87). 

3 Rhodes, I, p. 425; Curtis' "Republican Party," I, p. 137. 

4 Issue of January 2, 1854. The articles were written on December 28, 
1853. Ray's "Repeal of the Missouri Compromise," p. 205, note. 



'^"^ 



MISSOURI COMPROMISE 487 

Committee on Territories; but the interest of Senator 
Atchison was far more personal. He had declared to 
his constituency, and his pledge was not likely to be for- 
gotten, "That there may be no mistake, and that I may 
not be misunderstood hereafter, I now say emphatically 
that I will not vote for any bill that makes Nebraska a 
free soil Territory." ^ Pledges in terms equally strong had / ^^'>i-f^ 
been scattered by him throughout his entire Senatorial dis- Co^ 
trict. His most natural course, therefore, would have been, / ^^^ ^ 
just what he claimed that it had been, to go to Douglas, ^ '^^V/j. 
his intimate personal and political friend,^ and ask him to /yt^^ /; 
transfer to him the chairmanship of the Senate Committee -r • ' V. 
on Territories, to which the Nebraska bill had been re- 
ferred. This, if we may trust his own statement, was ex- 
actly what he did. " He had a private interview with Mr. 
Douglas," says the "New York Tribune" of October 10, 
1854,^ "and informed him of what he desired, the intro- 
duction of a bill for Nebraska like what he had promised 
to vote for, and that he would like to be chairman of the 
Committee on Territories in order to introduce such a 
measure, and, if he could get that position, he would im- 
mediately resign as Speaker of the Senate." 

Douglas hesitated, but finally declared that if, after 
twenty-four hours' consideration of the subject, " he could 
not introduce such a bill ... he would resign as chair- 
man of the Territorial Committee in Democratic Caucus, 

1 Atchison at Weston and Plate City. Full extract, Ray's "Repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise," pp. 135-136. 

2 Douglas and Atchison were close personal and political friends. Douglas 
had often gone to Missouri to lend his powerful aid to the Atchison faction 
against Benton, for whom Douglas entertained a strong dislike. 

3 Reporting a speech of Senator Atchison, at Atchison, Kansas Territory-, 
September 20, 1854. Text, Ray's "Repeal of the Missouri Compromise," 
pp. 278-280. 



488 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

and exert his influence to get him (Atchison) appointed." ^ 
At the expiration of the twenty-four hours, however, Judge 
Douglas declared that his resignation was unnecessary, as 
he had decided himself to report just such a bill as Atchi- 
son had described. 

In reporting this bill, however,^ Judge Douglas, as be- 
came a good politician, went back to the root of the matter. 
He declared that a new principle had been discovered in 
the Compromise of 1850. That Compromise, he said, 
was intended to be far more comprehensive than it has 
generally been understood to be, as it contemplated, not 
merely the settlement of the difficulties arising out of the 
cession of land from Mexico, but the avoiding of all future 
agitation concerning slavery, by taking from Congress 
the entire question of slavery or freedom in the Terri- 
tories, and giving it over to the people of the Territories 
to settle.^ 

The bill accompanying this report, however, did not 
declare, as it might quite logically have done, that this 
principle in the Compromise of 1850, had destroyed the 
old Missouri Compromise line. Such a complete accepta- 
tion of the logic of events was more than Douglas felt it 



1 From account in "New York Tribune" of October 10, 1854, referred to_ 
above. 

2 January 4, 1854, "Congressional Globe," XXVIII, Pt. I, p. 115; "Senatf 
Journal," ist Sess., 33d Cong., p. 77; Curtis' "Republican Party," I, p. 137 

3 Blaine, I, p. 114. Text, Dixon's "True History of the Missouri Com- 
promise and its Repeal," p. 433. "The Missouri Compromise," said Douglas, 
during the debates upon the Kansas-Nebraska bill, "was interference; the 
Compromise of 1850 was non-interference, leaving the people to e.xercise their 
rights under the Constitution. The Committee on Territories was compelled 
to act on this subject. I, as chairman, was bound to meet the question. I chose 
the responsibility, regardless of consequences personal to myself." Appendix, 
"Congressional Globe," XXIX, p. 337. 



MISSOURI COMPROMISE 489 

wise to advocate. He was anxious to win the favor ^ of 
the pro-slavery sections, by showing them that they might 
still have a fighting chance for Nebraska, which the Mis- 
souri Compromise had declared forever free from slavery, 
but he did not care to enrage his antislavery supporters, 
who were certain to regard any open attack upon the 
"Sacred Compact," ' as an unfriendly act. The bill 
stated simply that: 

" ... It is hereby declared to be the true intent and 
meaning of this act, so far as the question of slavery is 
concerned, to carry into practical operation the following 
propositions and principles established by the compro- 
mise measures of 1850, to wit: . . . that all questions 
pertaining to slavery in the Territories and the new States 
to be formed therefrom, are to be left to the decision of the 
people residing therein, through their appropriate repre- 
sentatives. . . ." ^ 

This was applying the doctrine, long known as, " Pop- 
ular Sovereignty" to the Territory in question, but it 
was not definite enough to satisfy the junior Senator 
from Kentucky, Archibald Dixon. He saw the deep fal- 

1 Rhodes, I, p. 430. 

2 Douglas himself refused to recognize the act preparatory to the admission 
of Missouri as a compact. "I should feel a flush of shame upon my cheek, 
as a northern man," he declared (March 3, 1854), in debate with Seward be- 
fore the Senate, "if I were to say that it was a compact. ... I deny that 
it was a compact in any sense of the term. . . . To call the act of the 6th of 
March, 1820, a compact, binding in honor, is to charge the northern States of 
this Union with an act of perfidy. ..." The reason he assigns for which 
opinion is, that: "... Missouri was refused admission into the Union as a 
slave-holding State in conformity with the act of March 6, 1820. ..." Mis- 
souri was admitted into the Union, he justly adds, "... on a condition not 
embraced in the act of 1820, and in addition to a full compliance with all 
the provisions of said act. ..." Appendix, "Congressional Globe," XXIX, 

PP- 329-330- 

3 "Congressional Globe," XXVIII, Pt. I, p. 222. 



490 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY . 

lacy of the proposition, that new States might come into 
the Union, "with or without slavery as their Constitutions 
may prescribe at the time of their admission," ^ which was 
the true import of the doctrine of " Popular Sovereignty." 
It was plain to him that slavery could hope for little from 
this doctrine in regions where, under the provisions of the 
Missouri Compromise, "not a slaveholder could enter the 
Territory with his property until after the Constitution of 
the State had been made." - 

Without a specific repeal of that Compromise, all terri- 
tory north of 36° 30' was certain to choose freedom, when 
it came to form the State Constitution, because it would in- 
evitably have been settled by a non-slaveholding population. 

With these facts clearly in mind, Dixon, a V/hig and 
Henry Clay's successor in the United States Senate,^ under- 
took to secure the passage of an amendment to the pend- 
ing bill, which would explicitly abolish the Missouri Com- 
promise restrictions. 

On January 16, 1854, he rose and gave notice to the 
Senate, that he would later offer an amendment to the 
Dodge-Douglas bill, declaring the Missouri Compromise 
repealed.'* Douglas was startled at the announcement. 

1 Dixon's "True History of the Missouri Compromise and its Repeal," 
p. 440. 

2 Ibid. 

3 Dixon's seat had been secured only after a heated controversy in the Senate. 
Details of the contest, Taft's "Senate Election Cases, 1789-1885," pp. 13-15. 

4 Facsimile of Dixon's proposed amendment, Dixon's "True History of 
the Missouri Compromise and its Repeal," pp. 441-442; text, "Congressional 
Globe," XXVIII, Pt. I, p. 175. Montgomery Blair, in a letter to Gideon Wells, 
dated May 17, 1873, declared that Seward had once boasted to him, "that he 
was the man who put ' Archy' Dixon, the Whig Senator from Kentucky in 1854, 
up to moving the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, as an amendment to 
Douglas' first Kansas [Nebraska] bill, and had himself forced the repeal by 
that movement, and had thus brought to life the Republican party. ..." 



MISSOURI compromise; 491 

"He immediately came to my seat," writes Dixon,^ "and 
courteously remonstrated against my amendment, sug- 
gesting that the bill which had been introduced was almost 
in the words of the territorial acts for the organization of 
Utah and New Mexico; that they being a part of the Com- 
promise Measures of 1850, he had hoped that I, as a 
known and zealous friend of the wise and patriotic ad- 
justment which had then taken place, would not be in- 
clined to do anything to call that adjustment in question 
or weaken it before the country." 

Dixon replied that his friendship for the Compromise 
Measures of 1850 was the very thing that had prompted 
his action. 

"I was well satisfied," he declared, "that the Missouri 
restriction, if not expressly repealed, would continue to 
operate in the Territories to which it had been applied, 
thus negativing the great and salutary principle of non- 
intervention which constituted the most prominent and 
essential feature of the plan of settlement of 1850." - 

The day after announcing the nature of his intended 
amendment to the Douglas bill, Senator Dixon remained 
at home; but he was not left alone. 

The story came to Dixon's ears and he wrote, to the editor of the "St. Louis 
Republican," NoveinI)cr 14, 1873, an elaborate letter, denying it. "To this 
statement of Mr. Seward, as put forth by Mr. Blair," he says, "I make a posi- 
tive and unqualified denial . . . there never was any conversation between 
Mr. Seward and myself, respecting my amendment to the Kansas-Nebraska 
bill, previous to the offering that amendment. . . . Neither did he use or 
attempt to use any influence, direct or indirect, to induce me to oJBfer the said 
amendment." The full text of this and other letters bearing on the question 
are given in Dixon's "True History of the Missouri Compromise and ils I^e- 
peal," pp. 587-610. 

1 Archibald Dixon to Hon. H. S. Foote. (Quoted, Dixon's "True History 
of the Missouri Compromise and its Repeal," pp. 445 ct seq. 

2 Archibald Dixon to H. S. Foote, ante. 



492 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 



I 



"Our parlor," wrote Mrs. Dixon,^ "was crowded all day 
with visitors; members of Congress, Whigs and Demo- 
crats; all congratulatory, all expressing a delighted sur- 
prise." It began to look as if the political capital, which 
Douglas had expected to gain in the South by his Nebraska 
bill, was drifting into the hands of this Whig Senator from 
Kentucky, who had gone a step farther than he himself 
had ventured to go. 

News of this enthusiasm was carried to Judge Douglas, 
who came the next afternoon to investigate the situation, 
and to sound Dixon as to the steadfastness of his determi- 
nation to bring in his amendment. He "urged me to . . . 
take a ride with him in his carriage," writes Dixon. ^ " I 
accepted his invitation and rode out with him." 

The conversation must have been animated, to judge 1 
from the brief accounts which we have of it. "Upon Mr. 
Dixon's return," writes his wife,^ "he told me of the con- 
versation ... of the arguments he used, and that finally 
Judge Douglas had said of the repeal — 'By G — d, sir, 
you are right, and I will incorporate it in my bill, though I 
know it will raise a hell of a storm.' " 

Dixon himself, in a well-known letter to Hon. H. S. 
Foote,^ gives more details of Douglas' conversation upon 
this important occasion: "I have become perfectly satis- 
fied," he said, "that it is my duty, as a fair-minded national 
statesman, to cooperate with you as proposed in securing 

1 "True History of the Missouri Compromise and its Repeal," p. 444. 

2 Ibid. 

3 "True History of the Missouri Compromise and its Repeal," p. 445. 

* Text, Dixon's "True History of the Missouri Compromise and its Re- 
peal," pp. 445 et seq. Dixon allowed Douglas to take charge of his amendment, 
writes Mrs. Dixon, because he knew that, "if the northern Democracy would 
give it their support, with the aid of the South, it was bound to succeed." 



MISSOURI COMPROMISE 493 

the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise restriction. . . . 
I shall be assailed by demagogues and fanatics . . . with- 
out stint or moderation. Every opprobrious epithet will 
be applied to me. I shall be, probably, hung in effigy in 
many places. It is more than probable that I may be- 
come permanently odious among those whose friendship 
and esteem I have heretofore possessed. This proceeding 
may end my political career. But, acting under the sense 
of duty which animates me, I am prepared to make the 
sacrifice. I will do it. . . ." 

Having carefully prepared the substitute, and having 
secured President Pierce and the able Secretary of War, 
Jefferson Davis, as certain supporters,^ Judge Douglas, 
on January 23, 1854, laid his substitute bill before the 
Senate. It declared explicitly that, "... The eighth 
section of the act preparatory to the admission of Missouri 
into the Union, approved March 6, 1820, which was 
superseded by the principles of the legislation of 1850, 
commonly called the Compromise Measures, ... is de- 
clared inoperative. . . ." - 

At once the anti-slavery hosts prepared for battle. 
Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York and 
Wisconsin issued vigorous protests against the crime of re- 

1 In a letter to Mrs. Dixon, printed in full in the "True History of the Mis- 
souri Compromise and its Repeal," pp. 457-460, Jefferson Davis gives the de- 
tails of the interview by which these supporters were secured. Jefferson Davis, 
though a native of Kentucky, had been taken to Mississippi by his parents in 
early infancy. His career, as a national figure, is therefore associated with Mis- 
sissippi. 

2 " Congressional Globe," XXVIII, Pt. I, p. 222. In a speech before the 
Senate, February 3, 1854 ("Congressional Globe," XXIX, p. 135), Chase de- 
clared, ". . .of the various mutations which it [the Douglas bill] has under- 
gone, I can hardly be mistaken in attributing the last to the amendment of the 
Senator from Kentucky." 



494 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

pealing the "Sacred Compromise of 1820." ^ But Doug- 
las stood his ground, and, knowing that the Senate, with 
its present composition, would pass his bill, managed his 
defense with a view to influencing the action of the House, 
and winning the support of the American public. 

Douglas, in those days, before his encounter with Abra- 
ham Lincoln, was the acknowledged master of the country, 
in the line of public debate, and, in the support of the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill, his powers were displayed to the 
best advantage. 

The aim of this measure, he told the Senate, and through 
the medium of the eager press, the House and the public, 
is, "that Congress shall neither legislate slavery into 
nor out of the Territories; neither to introduce nor ex- 
clude it; but to remove whatever obstacles Congress had 
put there, and apply the doctrine of Congressional non- 
intervention, in accordance with the principles of the Com- 
promise of 1850. . . ." - 

This statement of the case was soon found to be more 

1 The most important protest against the Douglas program was tlie so- 
called "Appeal of the Independent Democrats," a document signed by Chase, 
Sumner, Giddings, Wade, Gerritt Smith, and Alex. Dc Witt, and published 
the day after Douglas' new bill was presented. Text, "Congressional Globe," 
XXVIII, Pt. I, p. 281. 

2 " Congressional Globe," XXVIII, pp. 239-240; Rhodes, I, p. 471. "The 
Mississippian," of December 30, 1S53, remarks: "It is well known that the 
South acquiesced in the Compromise measures of 1850 ... on the construc- 
tion placed upon it by its cham])ions, that the settlement established the princi- 
ple that the people of a Territory should hereafter decide for themselves when 
they came to ])e admitted as a State whether or not slavery should exist within 
its bounds. . . . The question of organizing the Territory of Nebraska brings"* 
the matter to a test. . . . And now the question arises, will she [the North] 
require the enforcement of the law of 1820, or will she stand by the settlement 
of 1850?" See Ray's "Repeal of the Missouri Compromise," pp. igo-igi. 
The Albany "Argus," of December 14, 1853, states, even more definitely, the 
inconsistency of the two laws. Ibid., p. 194. 



MISSOURI COMPROMISE 495 

acceptable to certain opponents of the measure than that 
contained in the bill itself. Douglas, accordingly, agreed 
to alter the form of his bill, and submitted a new phrasing 
of its vital sentence. The bill, as thus altered, declared 
that the Missouri Compromise "Act . . . being incon- 
sistent with the principle of non-intervention by Congress 
with slavery in the States and Territories, as recognized by 
the legislation of 1850 ... is hereby declared inopera- 
tive and void; it being the true intent and meaning of this 
act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, 
nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof 
perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institu- 
tions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution 
of the United States." ^ 

The debate continued until the early morning hours of 
March 4, 1854. The vote was then taken, the yeas and 
nays being recorded. Thirty-seven Senators answered yea, 
as their names were called, the nays numbering only 
fourteen." It was five minutes past five o'clock in the 
morning, when the Senate adjourned, after a session of 
seventeen hours. Though most of its members little sus- 
pected it, they had given life to a measure which was 
destined to transform the political conditions of the na- 
tion, readjust the political parties of the Republic, and set 
the stage for the dramatic entrance of the greatest of all 
Kentucky's sons, "the rail-splitter" Abraham Lincoln."' 

• Tliis ameiulmcnt was adopted February 15, 1S54 (vote 35 to 10). "Con- 
gressional Globe," XXVIII, Pt. I, p. 353; "Senate Journal," ist Sess., 33d 
Cong., p. 188, for text and vote. 

2 "Congressional Globe," XXVIII, I't. I, p. 532, for yeas and nays. Tiic 
act is ofTicially entitled, "An act to organize the Territories of Nebraska and 
Kansas." 

3 Abraham Lincoln was born in Hardin County, Kentucky, in a district now 



496 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

The vast importance of this Kansas-Nebraska bill was 
dimly appreciated, however, by some of the leaders of 
the Senate. As Chase and Sumner left the capitol, 
wearied with their vain efforts to defeat it, they heard 
the roar of guns, fired in honor of the passage of the bill. 
Sumner paused to listen. He then remarked to his 
companion: 

"They celebrate a present victory, boit the echoes they 
awake, will never cease until slavery itself shall perish." ^ 

The bill was promptly sent to the House, where, amid a 
hurricane of invective against Stephen A. Douglas, it was 
finally passed, by a majority of thirteen.^ On May 30th, 
President Pierce affixed his signature, and the Kansas- 
Nebraska bill became a law. 

Thus Clay's "Dove of Peace" proved rather a fire- 
brand, to set the nation ablaze. Amid the fervent heat 
which it generated, the Whig party melted away, old po- 
litical affiliations were rudely shaken, and the cry went 
forth for all, who opposed the principle of extension of 
slavery, to organize, irrespective of former party lines. The 
result was the rapid building up of the Republican party, 

included in Larue County. At the age of seven, he was taken by his father to 
Spencer County, Indiana. In 1830 he made his first entrance into IlUnois, a 
tall youth of twenty-one, barefoot and driving a yoke of oxen, which drew a 
rough wagon, in which were deposited all the earthly goods of the Lincoln 
family. His national career is properly associated with Illinois, which he always 
regarded as "home." 

1 Rhodes, I, p. 476. 

2 May 22, 1854, vote 113 to 100. "Congressional Globe," XXVIII, Pt. II, 
p. 1254. Slight alterations made necessary a reconsideration by the Senate. 
Douglas reintroduced the bill, declaring, ". . . It presents no new issue, no 
new question, and I therefore ask that the Senate may proceed to vote upon it." 
"Congressional Globe," XXVIII, Pt. II, p. 1300. On May 25, 1854, it again 
passed the Senate, vote 35 to 13. "Congressional Globe," XXVIII, Pt. 11, 
p. 1321. 



MISSOURI COMPROMISE 497 

with one object in view, to restrict the institution of slavery 
to the States where it already existed. 

The history of the growth of that party does not be- 
long to our story. By 1856, it was strong enough to hold 
a national convention, and nominate candidates for Presi- 
dent and Vice President, but its strength was confined to 
the non-slaveholding States. In the slave States, it was 
felt to be a dangerous menace to the right of private 
property, and so found few supporters. 

In Kentucky, at the November election of 1856, the 
race was between James Buchanan and John C. Breckin- 
ridge, the candidates of the old Democracy, and Millard 
Fillmore and Andrew J. Donelson, the nominees of the 
new, Native American party. The two tickets divided the 
vote, Buchanan receiving a bare majority of six thousand 
one hundred and eighteen votes,^ due largely to the per- 
sonal popularity of John C. Breckinridge, and the pride 
with which his fellow Kentuckians regarded his brilliant 
career. The Kentucky vote for the Republican candi- 
dates, John C. Fremont and William L. Dayton, was 
negligible, only three hundred and fourteen within the 
entire State. ^ 

James Buchanan was chosen President, upon the basis 
of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and by a majority which 
left no room for doubt as to the popular verdict upon the 
principles laid down in that memorable piece of legislation. 

With the history of the earlier years of his administra- 
tion, we are not here concerned. It was marked by the 
gradual melting away of the Know-nothing party, and the 
rapid growth of the "new party," called Republican, 

1 Collins, I, p. 77. 

2 Louisville "Courier," August 13, 1857. 

Kentucky — 32 



498 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

which labored, and labored successfully, to gather into its 
ranks all men, of whatever political creed, who had opposed 
the Kansas-Nebraska bill, or who were willing to give 
their political influence toward preventing the further ex- 
tension of the institution of slavery. 

By November, 1860,^ the Republican party had grown 
into a consolidated and powerful organization. A split 
in the ranks of the Democracy gave it its opportunity, 
and Abraham Lincoln was chosen President. 

Of the four national tickets which figured in that con- 
test, three stood definitely for Union, Bell and Everett, 
Douglas and Johnson, Lincoln and Hamlin. A vote for 
any one of these was, in effect, a vote to sustain union, 
as opposed to the distinctly anti-union position of the 
Breckinridge-Lane ticket. By adding together their pop- 
ular vote in Kentucky, therefore, we can easily determine 
the strength of the Union sentiment in that State, at the time 
of Lincoln's election. It amounted to over forty thousand 
Union majority, out of a total vote of a little less than a 
hundred and fifty thousand.^ 

The strong support given by Kentucky to the so-called 
''Constitutional-Unionist party" of Bell and Everett, in 

1 It was in this year that the so-called "Opposition" party in Kentucky took 
the more definite name, "Union Party," while the Democratic party was com- 
monly spoken of as the "Southern Rights Party." Speed's "Union Cause in 
Kentucky," pp. 2, 18. 

2 Bell and Everett 66,016 

Douglas and Johnson -25,644 

Lincoln and Hamlin i>366 

Total 93>026 

Breckinridge and Lane 52,836 

40,190 
— Collins, I, p. 84. 



I 



MISSOURI COMPROMISE 499 

this election, is the more significant, when we remember 
that, in the State elections of the previous year, the Demo- 
crats had chosen the Governor, Beriah Magoffin, by a 
majority of almost nine thousand, and the Lieutenant 
Governor, Linn Boyd, by a still larger majority.^ It meant 
that Kentucky, still democratic at heart, placed loyalty to 
the Union far higher than mere party loyalty. It meant 
that, upon the very threshold of secession and civil war, 
the people of Kentucky were overwhelmingly in favor of 
preserving the Union of States, of " redressing the wrongs 
of the South " within the Union, and not outside of it. 
It meant that Kentucky's sympathies were with John J. 
Crittenden, John Bell, Edward Everett, and the rest of the 
men who had declared, as their platform, that the Consti- 
tution and the Union were the matters of greatest concern, 
and had intimated a willingness to compromise all other 
questions — not the wisest position, as we see it now, per- 
haps, but a position capable of rational defence from the 
point of view of men to whom the volume of our civil war 
history was not yet open. 

1 Election of August i, 1859. For Governor: Magoffin (Democrat), 76,187, 
Joshua F. Bell (Opposition), 67,283 — majority, 8,904. For Lieutenant 
Governor: Linn Boyd (Democrat), 75,320; Alfred Allen (Opposition), 67,607 — 
majority, 11,713. Figures, etc., Collins, I, p. 81. 



CHAPTER XVI 



LOYAL TO THE UNION 



Upon the assembling of Congress for its final session, 
on December 3, i860, President Buchanan found him- 
self in a very unpleasant situation. He knew that seces- 
sion projects were forming in most of the slave States, and 
that South Carolina had arranged for the assembling of 
a "Sovereignty Convention" which meant secession; but 
his opening message ^ displayed none of the vigor and 
decision which these facts demanded. Instead of taking 
a bold stand upon one or the other side of the issue, he 
gravely straddled the question, declaring, in one breath, 
that secession was illegal and, in the next, that the Fed- 
eral Government had no power to prevent it. 

This message served to urge on the secession move- 
ment, by holding up to view the fancied impotency of the 
Federal Government, and was, therefore, bitterly attacked. 
Kentucky's venerable Senator, John J. Crittenden,^ how- 
ever, warmly praised its peaceful tone, while dissenting 
from certain features of it. His plea was for a judicial 
attitude at this critical point of our nation's history. "The 
Union," he declared, "is worthy of great sacrifices and 
great concessions. ... I trust there is not a Senator 
here who is not willing to yield and to compromise much, 

1 December 3, i860. Text, Richardson's "Messages and Papers," V, 
pp. 626 et seq. See also Curtis' "Buchanan," II, pp. 337-350. 

2 Crittenden had been elected Senator, January 10, 1854, to succeed Archi- 
bald Dixon, whose term expired March 4, 1855. Collins, I, p. 69. 

SCO 



LOYAL TO THE UNION 501 

in order to preserve the Government and the Union. . . . 
Calm consideration is demanded of us. . . . I will waive 
any remarks I might have been disposed to make on the 
message. I do not agree that there is no power in the 
President to preserve the Union. . . . To say that no 
State has a right to secede, and that it is a wTong to the 
Union, and yet that the Union has no right to interpose 
any obstacles to its secession, seems to me to be altogether 
contradictory." ^ 

A few days later, Crittenden gave a more important ex- 
pression to this spirit of compromise, in a speech before 
the United States Senate. Like Clay, in the days of the 
California discussions, he had thought out and formulated 
a series of resolutions which, he believed, would reconcile 
the sections, restore the already shattered Union, and 
settle permanently the chief questions which had grown 
out of slavery.- Obtaining the jfloor on December 18, 
he briefly explained his plan. "I have endeavored by 
these resolutions to meet all these questions and causes 
of discontent by amendments to the Constitution of the 
United States, so that the settlement, if we can happily 
agree on any, may be permanent, and leave no cause for 
future controversy. These resolutions propose, then, in 
the first place, in substance, the restoration of the Missouri 
Compromise, extending the line throughout the Terri- 
tories of the United States to the eastern border of Cali- 
fornia, recognizing slavery in all the territory south of that 
line, and prohibiting slavery in all the territory north of it; 
with a proviso, however, that when any Territories, north 

1 In Senate, December 4, i860. Coleman's "Crittenden," II, pp. 220-222, 
for full text. Collins, I, p. 84, gives the false impression that Crittenden de- 
fended the whole of Buchanan's strange doctrine. 

2 Curtis' "Republican Party," I, p. 376. 



502 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

or south, are formed into States, they shall then be at 
liberty to exclude or admit slavery as they please, and 
that, in the one case or the other, it shall be no objection to 
their admission into the Union. 

"... I propose, sir, also, that the Constitution shall be 
so amended as to declare that Congress shall have no 
power to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia so 
long as slavery exists in the States of Maryland and 
Virgina; and that they shall have no power to abolish 
slavery in any of the places under their special jurisdiction 
within the Southern States. 

"These are the constitutional amendments which I 
propose .... There are other propositions in relation 
to grievances, and in relation to controversies, which I 
suppose are within the jurisdiction of Congress, and may 
be removed by the action of Congress. I propose, in re- 
gard to legislative action, that the fugitive slave law, as it 
is commonly called, shall be declared by the Senate to be 
a constitutional act, in strict pursuance of the Consti 
tution. I propose to declare that it has been decided by 
the Supreme Court of the United States to be constitu- 
tional, and that the Southern States are entitled to a 
faithful and complete execution of that law, and that no! 
amendment shall be made hereafter to it which will im 
pair its efficiency. . . . 

" I have further provided, . . . that the amendments to 
the Constitution which I here propose, and certain other 
provisions of the Constitution itself, shall be unalterable, 
thereby forming a permanent and unchangeable basis for 
peace and tranquillity among the people." 

After a careful explanation of these proposed compro- 
mise measures, Mr. Crittenden turned to the section of the 



I 



LOYAL TO THE UNION 503 

Senate Chamber occupied by the Southern Senators, "Can 
you ask more than this ? " he said, "Are you bent on revo- 
lution, bent on disunion ? God forbid it. I cannot be- 
Heve that such madness possesses the American people. 
This gives reasonable satisfaction. I can speak with con- 
fidence only of my own State. Old Kentucky will be 
satisfied with it, and she will stand by the Union and die 
by the Union if this satisfaction be given." ^ 

Earlier in the session, the other Senator from Kentucky, 
Lazarus W. Powell, had moved the creation of a committee 
(afterwards known as the Senate Committee of Thirteen), 
to concert measures of compromise and pacification. 
When it was appointed, both Powell and Crittenden were 
members,^ and, early in their meeting, the latter laid his 
Compromise Resolutions before it. Most of the Demo- 
cratic members saw in them a chance of successful ad- 
justment of the pressing sectional differences; but the 
Republican members, naturally enough, considered them 
as yielding too much to the South, and they were rejected. 

The attitude of the American people toward these pro- 
posals has been recently set forth by the historian, James 
Ford Rhodes, who declares,^ "... No doubt can now 

1 Coleman's "Crittenden," II, Chap. XIII, for speech, correspondence, etc., 
and full text of the Compromise Resolutions. Collins, I, p. 85. 

2 List of members, Nicolay-Hay, "Lincoln," II, p. 414; Curtis' "Republican 
Party," I, p. 376. 

3 "History of the United States," III, p. 261. The "Cincinnati Enquirer," 
of July 3, 1861, declares, "The whole South, save South Carolina, would have 
accepted Crittenden's Compromise. ... It is written down in stern and 
inexorable history that the Republicans in Congress would not accept these 
propositions." For an opposite view, see Blaine's "Twenty Years in Con- 
gress," I, pp. 261-267. ^^ support of this statement Mr. Rhodes presents 
almost three pages of references, statistics, opinions, etc. (Ill, pp. 261-263, 
footnotes). Some of Buchanan's friends attempted to persuade Lincoln to 
approve Crittenden's compromise proposals. His reply was, "I am for no 



504 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

exist, and but little could have existed in January, 1861, 
that if it [Crittenden's compromise plan], had been sub- 
mitted to the people it would have carried the Northern 
States by a great majority; that it would have obtained 
the vote of almost every man in the border States; and that 
it would have received the preponderating voice of all the 
cotton States but South Carolina." 

Such speculations, however, are but the vain cries of what 
might have been. Crittenden's plan was not submitted 
to the people, ^ and the progress of events toward seces- 
sion was rapid and uninterrupted. 

About the middle of November, Major Robert Ander- 
son, a native Kentuckian, serving in the regular army, had 
been ordered to leave his post in Kentucky and assume 
command of the United States forces in Charleston har- 
bor, with headquarters at Fort Moultrie.^ It was an ap- 
pointment of grave importance, as it was felt that Charles- 
ton harbor would become the storm center, as soon as the 
South Carolina Convention should assemble. 

On December 17, i860, that Convention met at Co- 
lumbia, and, three days later, passed, with solemn formal- 
ities, the now famous Ordinance of Secession,^ announc- 
ing the dissolution of "the Union between the State of 
South Carolina and other States united with her under 
the compact entitled, 'The Constitution of the United 

compromise, which asserts or permits the extension of the institution in soil 
owned by the nation. ..." Schouler, V, pp. 505-506. 

1 A test vote was taken in the Senate upon Crittenden's proposals and re- 
sulted in their defeat. Schouler, V, p. 506. 

2 Robert Anderson was born, near Louisville, Ky., June 14, 1805. Sketch 
of life, Collins, I, pp. 218-220. See also Ibid., p. 84. 

3 Text, Curtis' "Republican Party," I, pp. 367 et seq. The convention had 
left Columbia on the first day of the session, as smallpox was prevailing there, 
and had reassembled (December 18) at Charleston. 



LOYAL TO THE UNION 505 

States of America.' " A commission was then sent to 
Washington to open negotiations for the division of public 
property, and the surrender of the Federal forts in Charles- 
ton harbor.^ 

In the meantime, Major Anderson had studied the 
situation, and had decided that Fort Moultrie was dan- 
gerously exposed and, in the event of a conflict, would be 
untenable by the small force under his command. Ac- 
cordingly, on December 27, 1861, he burned the inside 
of the fort, spiked her guns, and quietly transferred her 
garrison to Fort Sumter, a strong position, upon a small 
island, in the mouth of the harbor.^ 

News of this sudden and unauthorized movement was 
at once conveyed to the Secretary of War, John B. Floyd 
of Virginia, a man who, by his later confession, was using 
his high office in the interest of the cause of disunion.^ 
Professing indignation at Anderson's unmilitary conduct, 
but really angry at the fact that Anderson's movement 
had strengthened the Government's position in Charleston 
harbor, Floyd sent him the following dispatch: 

"Intelligence has reached here this morning that you 
have abandoned Fort Moultrie, spiked your guns, burned 
the carriages, and gone to Fort Sumter. It is not believed, 
because there is no order for any such movement. Ex- 
plain the meaning of this report." "* 

The answer was promptly returned, laconic and ex- 
plicit: "I abandoned Fort Moultrie, because I was certain 
if attacked my men must have been sacrificed, and the 



1 Schouler, V, p. 476. 

2 Collins, I, p. 85; Rhodes, III, p. 216. 

3 Curtis' "Buchanan," II, p. 306. 

4 "Official Records," Series I, Vol. I, p. 3. 



5o6 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

command of the harbor lost. . . . If attacked the garrison 
would never have surrendered without a fight." ^ 

To this no adequate reply was possible, Anderson had 
exercised the military discretion which is necessary to every 
command; but the South Carolina commissioners, now at 
Washington, called upon the President, and demanded an 
express disavowal of Major Anderson's action, as a con- 
dition of opening the negotiations for which they had been 
sent.^ To this extreme, Buchanan declined to go, and the 
Commissioners retired, without having secured even so 
much as an official interview with the President.^ 

The breaking up of the Cabinet, and the retirement of 
the southern leaders, who had acted as his advisers, now 
brought Buchanan under the influence of the union men 
who succeeded to their places."* But, in spite of these 
changes, he made but one feeble attempt to reinforce 
Anderson, and, this being prevented by the Charleston 
authorities,^ he entered, with certain southern leaders, into 
a sort of truce, by which he agreed to make no further 
attempt to reinforce the forts, situated within the limits or 
harbors of the seceded States, upon condition that the 
seceders should not attempt to reduce them, during the 
remainder of his administration. ° 

Meanwhile the fate of Crittenden's compromise propo- 

1 Text, " Official Records," Scries I, Vol. I, p. 3. 

3 Schouier, V, p. 479. 

8 The only interview was expressly stated by Buchanan to be with private 
gentlemen and not with representatives of South Carolina. Rhodes, III, p. 
226. 

4 Curtis' "Republican Party," I, p. 375, for list of changes. Floyd, Secre- 
tary of War, was succeeded by Joseph Holt, of Kentucky, who served from 
January iS, 1861, to the end of the administration. 

<> Rhodes, III, pp. 244-248; Collins, I, p. 85. 
Schouier, V, p. 487. 



f 



LOYAL TO THE UNION 507 

sitions was causing great excitement in Kentucky, where 
it was felt to be little short of a crime, at such a time, to 
allow a peaceful solution of the country's difficulties to 
be buried in a committee of the Senate, without even the 
courtesy of a public debate. A large majority of her citi- 
zens, while firmly believing in the abstract right of seces- 
sion, were ardently devoted to the Union. "Their loy- 
alty," says General Hodge, himself an old Confederate 
officer, "was nearly akin to the religious faith which is 
born in childhood, which never falters during the excite- 
ments of the longest life, and which at last enables the 
cradle to triumph over the grave. The mass of them did 
not reason about it. The Union was apotheosized. . . . 
The suggestion of its dissolution was esteemed akin to 
blasphemy, to advocate or to speculate about it was to be 
infamous." ^ But they had been trained in the school of 
Henry Clay, and his faith in the efficacy of compromise 
had become almost instinctive with them. His mantle of 
political leadership had fallen upon John J. Crittenden, ^ 
in whose compromise proposals, they saw again the spirit 
of their "Great Commoner." 

As the question of loyalty to the Union had now be- 

1 "Outline History of Kentucky," Collins, I, p. 335. Few Kentuckians, of 
whatever political creed, will venture to disagree with this statement. Most of 
those who passed through the civil war period will heartily agree to the state- 
ment, recently made by Mr. Justice Harlan of the United States Supreme 
Court, "... I confidently assert that there was no moment during the war, 
when a decided majority of the people [of Kentucky] were not unalterably op- 
posed to a dissolution of the Union, under all circumstances, and whatever 
might be the result as to the institution of slavery. ..." Letter to the author, 
dated Pointe au Pic, Province of Quebec, Canada, July — , 1909. 

2 Clay himself had intended to transfer the leadership of his Kentucky Whig 
following to the brilliant young statesman, Richard H. Menefee; but his plan 
had been frustrated by the untimely death of his political protege, in 1841, at 
the age of 3 1 years. 



508 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

come the dominant question, in view of South CaroHna's 
action, old party differences were swept aside, and the 
Bell and Douglas parties in Kentucky became, in effect, 
one political organization. Its purpose was to preserve 
the Union; and, in Crittenden's proposals, most of its 
members saw a peaceful means of accomplishing this 
end. On January 8, 1861, a convention of the con- 
solidated party ^ assembled at Louisville, to utter a 
protest against their defeat. By unanimous consent, 
they adopted and circulated a series of resolutions de- 
claring: 

"We recommend the adoption of the propositions of 
our distinguished Senator, John J. Crittenden, as a fair 
and honorable adjustment of the difficulties which divide 
and distract the people of our beloved country. . . . We 
recommend to the Legislature of the State, to put the 
amendments of Senator Crittenden in form, and submit 
them to the other States. . . ." ^ This protest, made 
in the name of over ninety thousand Kentuckians, was 
unheeded; ^ and, a week later, the United States Senate 
disposed of Crittenden's propositions by adopting, as a 
substitute, a resolution declaring, "That the provisions of 
the Constitution are ample for the preservation of the 
Union . . . that it needs to be obeyed rather than 
amended. . . ." ^ 

1 Collins, I, p. 338; Speed's "Union Cause in Kentucky," p. 35. 

2 Full text, Collins, I, pp. 85-86. 

3 A glance at the table of Kentucky's vote in the presidential election of 
i860 will show that a party composed of a combination of Bell and Douglas 
parties represented a large majority of the State. In that election, the com- 
bined strength of Bell and Douglas was 91,660 votes. That of the other two 
parties combined only 54,202. Figures, Collins, I, p. 84. 

4 This amendment was proposed by Mr. Powell, Senator from Kentucky. 
It passed the Senate on January 16, 1861, by a vote of 29 to 24. Yeas and nays, 



LOYAL TO THE UNION 509 

Upon the day following the passage of this resolution, 
the Kentucky Legislature met, in special session. The 
governor's opening message (January 17, 1861), showed 
unmistakable signs of sympathy with the secession move- 
ment, and was evidently designed to bring the Legislature 
to a decided stand against the idea of using force to pre- 
vent a complete dissolution of the Union. Its tone in- 
dicates the very natural belief, on the part of the governor, 
that a Legislature, which had chosen John C. Breckin- 
ridge to the United States Senate,^ would not hesitate to 
advocate the principles for which his party stood, al- 
though the people of the State, in their vote for President, 
had positively rejected them. 

" The special purpose for which the Legislature has been 
called into extra session," the message declared, " is that 
you may consider the propriety of providing for the election 
of delegates to a [Sovereignty] Convention, to be assembled 
at an early day, to which shall be referred for full and final 
determination the future of Federal and interstate relations 
of Kentucky. . . . This Commonwealth, will not be an 
indifferent observer of the force policy . . . the seceding 
States have not, in their hasty and inconsiderate action, 
our approval, but their cause is our right, and they have 
our sympathies. The people of Kentucky will never stand 
with arms folded while those States are struggling for their 
constitutional rights, and resisting oppression, or being 
subjugated to an anti-slavery government. . . . The 
idea of coercion, when applied to great political com- 
munities, is revolting to a free people, contrary to the 

together with text of amendment, "Congressional Globe, 2d Sess., 36th Cong., 
Pt. I, p. 404. 

1 Election of December 12, 1859. Vote, see Collins, I, p. 81. 



510 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

spirit of our institutions, and, if successful, would endanger 
the liberties of the people." ^ 

The message further urges the Legislature to provide 
arms and military equipment for the State Guard, and 
to take an open and decided stand against, "the em- 
ployment of force in any form against the seceding 
States." 

Such a message, at so critical a moment, alarmed the 
Unionist leaders in the Legislature. A Sovereignty Con- 
vention, at a time of such intense excitement,^ might 
mean for Kentucky also, "hasty and inconsiderate ac- 
tion." Their wisest course, therefore, was to prevent, 
if possible, the calling of a convention, and thus keep 
Kentucky in the Union, until the people, in the State elec- 
tions of the following August, should have a chance to 
select new men to represent them in the Legislature. From 
the votes which had already been taken in the State, since 
the question of union, as against secession, had become the 
dominant issue, they judged that the next Legislature 
would be strongly unionist.^ As at present constituted, 
the Senate contained a small majority of Union men, 
while the House was about equally divided; ^ but the 
Unionist leaders, while believing in the ultimate loyalty of 

1 Extracts from governor's message, Speed's "Union Cause in Kentucky," 
p. 27. 

2 Three States had already followed the example of South Carolina, and 
passed ordinances of secession: Mississippi (January 9, 1861), Florida (Janu- 
ary 10), Alabama (January 11). Georgia was just ready to follow them, and 
did so a few days later (January 19). 

3 This belief was correct. In the elections of August 5, 1861, seventy-six 
Unionist members were elected to the House, and only twenty -four States' rights 
men. The new Senate, including those whose seats were not involved in the 
election, contained twenty-seven Unionists and eleven States' rights men. Fig- 
ures, Collins, I, p. 92. 

4 Speed's "Union Cause in Kentucky," p. 39. 



LOYAL TO THE UNION 51 1 

the mass of Kentucky voters, feared the contagion of 
enthusiasm which was sweeping State after State into 
the secession movement. 

The Unionists in the House gained their first victory 
in the passage of a resolution, directing the sergeant-at- 
arms, "to hoist the American flag over the capitol during 
the present session." ^ But, upon the next important 
question, they were completely overwhelmed. On Janu- 
ary 21, George W. Ewing, of Logan County, proposed 
two resolutions of a dangerously menacing character.^ 
The first, which was passed by unanimous consent, ex- 
pressed strong disapproval of the recent action of the States 
of New York, Ohio, Maine and Massachusetts, in sending 
men and money to the President of the United States, "to 
be used in coercing certain sovereign States of the South 
into obedience to the Federal Government." The sec- 
ond, which was passed by a vote of eighty-seven to six, 
requested the governor, "to inform the executives of 
each of said States that it is the opinion of this general 
assembly, that whenever the authorities of these States 
shall send armed forces to the South for the purpose in- 
dicated . . . the people of Kentucky, uniting with their 
brethren of the South, will as one man resist such invasion 
of the soil of the South at all hazards and to the last ex- 
tremity." 

These resolutions were drawn in the form of a joint reso- 
lution, and the Unionist leaders in the Senate proceeded to 
secure their defeat, by vigorously pressing other and less 
dangerous questions upon the attention of the State Sena- 
tors. The Virginia Legislature had recently passed a 

1 Collins, I, p. 86. 

2 Text, Ibid. 



512 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

resolution inviting the co-States to a Peace Conference, to 
be held at the national capitol, on February the fourth.^ 
In the invitation which had been sent to Kentucky, it was 
stated that, in the attempt "to adjust the present un- 
happy controversies," Crittenden's plan of compromise 
would be accepted by Virginia,^ 

Disregarding, therefore, the "joint resolution" which 
the House proposed, the Unionist leaders in the Senate 
vigorously urged the importance of promptly accepting 
Virginia's peaceful proposals, and of appointing com- 
missioners to represent Kentucky in the projected Peace 
Conference. By unanimous consent of the Senate, and 
by almost unanimous consent of the House,^ six Ken- 
tucky delegates were appointed, and the sum of five hun- 
dred dollars each was appropriated for their use. 

Twenty other States took similar action, and, on the ap- 
pointed day, one hundred and thirty-three commissioners 
assembled at Washington, only to find that it is vain to cry 
" peace ! peace ! when there is no peace." There was no real 
harmony among the various delegations; and the report, 
which was adopted and sent to Congress, after three weeks 
of discussion, represented merely a majority, the most im- 
portant section, that relating to slavery in the Territories, 
having been passed by a majority of only one, the vote be- 
ing by States. In spite of the injunction to secrecy, this 
fact soon became known, and therefore, when Crittenden 
presented the report to the United States Senate, on 

1 This was the day fixed by the seceded States for the assembling at Mont- 
gomery of a convention to form a new confederacy. 

2 Text, "Congressional Globe," ad Sess., 36 Cong., p. 601. 

3 House eighty-one for, five against electing delegates. Names of Kentucky 
delegates, Collins, I, pp. 86, ^41, and Crittenden's "Debates and Proceedings 
of the Peace Convention of 1861," p. 19. 



LOYAL TO THE UNION 513 

March 2, 1 86 1, it received scant support, only six, be- 
sides himself, voting in its favor. ^ 

In the Kentucky Legislature, meanwhile, the Unionists 
had steadily and successfully pursued their fight against 
taking definite action concerning the question of seces- 
sion. No Sovereignty Convention had been provided 
for, and no resolutions of a partisan character had been 
passed. On the contrary, R. T. Jacob had introduced 
into the lower House ^ a resolution declaring, "That the 
proper position of Kentucky is that of a mediator be- 
tween the sections, and that as an umpire she should 
remain firm and impartial in this day of trial to our be- 
loved country, that by her counsels and mediation she 
may aid in restoring peace and harmony and brotherly 
love throughout the land." 

In this resolution we have embodied the sentiment which 
was gradually forming itself in the minds of the most 
prominent citizens of the State, with the exception of the 
few who had definitely committed themselves to the idea 
of secession. It expressed the spirit of compromise which 
Kentucky had shown in her support of the Bell-Everett 
ticket in i860, in her enthusiasm for Crittenden's pro- 
posals, and in her participation in the Peace Conference. 
It suggested that Kentucky definitely assume a position of 
friendship toward both belligerents, and, through it, work 
for the restoration of peace. This was the stand later 
advocated by the Kentucky Unionists, that is, by a ma- 
jority of the citizens of the State, but as yet the Unionist 
leaders were unwilling to assume even this position, and 
the resolutions had not been brought to a vote. 

1 Details of vote, "Congressional Globe," 2d Sess., 36th Cong., p. 1405. 

2 January 29, 1861. Text, Speed's "Union Cause in Kentucky," p. 30. 

Kentucky — ;^;^ 



514 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

After a brief recess,^ the Legislature reconvened, and 
the fight for delay and inaction was reopened by the 
Unionist leaders, who were still determined to prevent 
precipitate action, and to allow the people to settle the 
question of union or secession, at the coming elections. 
Their task was even more difficult than before, as Lincoln's 
inauguration (March 4, 1861), and that of Jefferson Davis, 
as provisional President of the "Confederate States of 
America" (February 18, 1861), had occurred during the 
recess, and the intensity of feeling, for the one side or the 
other, had rapidly increased. Special invitations were 
sent out, requesting prominent leaders, both Unionist and 
States' rights men, to discuss the national situation before 
the two Houses of the Legislature, and the general public 
was admitted to the meetings. Crittenden, whose term in 
the United States Senate had just expired, was asked to 
address a joint session of both Houses,^ and his speech was 
an eloquent plea for Union and mutual concessions. "It 
would be wisdom in us," he said, "never to consider the 
question of dissolution. It is not a question to be de- 
bated. . . ." 

A few days later, John C. Breckinridge received a similar 
invitation and, on April 2, presented the cause of the 
Southern rights men,^ pleading, not for secession, but for 
peace, if this could be secured without sacrificing what he 
regarded as the "inalienable rights of the South." ^ 

It was next decided to invite the border slave States to 

1 Febraary ii to March 20, 1861. Collins, I, p. 86. 

2 Address of March 26, 1861. Full text, Coleman's "Crittenden," II, 
pp. 299-316. 

3 Collins, I, p. 87. 

4 "As long as there was a hope of peace with honor he [Breckinridge] bent 
his energies to secure it." CoUins, II, p. 203. 



LOYAL TO THE UNION 515 

send delegates to a peace conference to be held at Frank- 
fort, Kentucky, on the twenty-seventh of May; and provi- 
sion was made for the election of twelve Kentucky del- 
egates, one from each Congressional district in the State. ^ 
The Legislature then adjourned, sine die.^ The Unionist 
leaders had succeeded in their undertaking, and no ac- 
tion for the calling of a Sovereignty Convention had been 
taken. The question was apparently to be left open, for 
the decision of the people, in the elections of the coming 
August. 

But long before the date fixed for those elections, the 
whole aspect of affairs was suddenly changed by the fall of 
Fort Sumter. It was no longer merely a question of the 
right to secede which confronted Kentucky; she must now 
decide upon her attitude toward two belligerent powers 
engaged in actual war. 

Major Anderson's position at Fort Sumter had been, 
from the first, recognized as untenable, in case of any 
serious attempt of the South Carolina authorities to storm 
it. By a truce, the garrison had been allowed a limited 
intercourse with the city of Charleston, but, on April 7, 
General Beauregard notified Major Anderson that such 
intercourse would no longer be permitted.^ The next day 
Lincoln announced that supplies would be sent to Fort 

1 The election of Kentucky delegates was set for May 4, but, before that 
date, Fort Sumter had fallen (April 13, 1861), and the country stood face to 
face with civil war. The elections were held, however, resulting in the choice 
of the entire "Union" ticket. (Names, Collins, I, p. 89.) The convention met 
on May 27, and sat until June 3, John J. Crittenden acting as president. It 
proved, however, a small affair, only two States, besides Kentucky, having sent 
delegates. (Missouri four and Tennessee one. Names, etc., Collins, I, p. 91.) 
See also Speed's "Union Cause in Kentucky," pp. 42-43. 

2 Adjournment, April 4, 1861. 

3 ColHns, I, p. 87; Rhodes, III, p. 347. 



51 6 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

Sumter, by force if necessary.^ This was the critical 
moment, and South CaroHna had no idea of losing it. The 
existence of a Federal (alien) garrison within South Caro- 
lina waters seemed to her an indignity, and she decided to 
take immediate steps to secure possession of the fort. Un- 
der the pressure of her eagerness, President Davis ordered 
General Beauregard to demand the surrender of Fort 
Sumter, and, in case of refusal, "to reduce it." ^ True to 
his trust, Anderson declined to evacuate; but admitted 
that he would be " starved out in a few days," if no supplies 
reached him; and, after further negotiation, declared that, 
if by noon of April 15, he should not receive "controlling 
instructions" or supplies, he would evacuate the fort.^ 
This answer did not satisfy the aids who bore General 
Beauregard's demand for surrender, and they gave Ander- 
son notice that, in an hour, the Confederate batteries would 
open lire upon Fort Sumter.^ When the hour had expired, 
at 4: 30 on the morning of April 12, 1861,^ a shell from a 
mortar at Fort Johnson " rose high in air and, curving in 
its course, burst almost directly over the fort." ^ After 
a bombardment lasting twenty-four hours. Fort Sumter 
hauled down the tattered American flag, and Major Ander- 
son, having negotiated honorable terms of surrender, 
loaded his little garrison upon a vessel, and set sail for New 
York (April 14). The next day, Lincoln's Proclamation 
appeared, calling upon the States for seventy-five thousand 
troops for use against the insurgents, and command- 

1 Collins, I, p. 87; Schouler, VI, p. 30, for details. 
2"Ofi6icial Records," I, p. 297. 

3 Ibid., pp. 14, 60. 

4 Rhodes, III, p. 349. 

5 " Official Records," I, p. 60. 

6 Rhodes, III, p. 349. 



I 



LOYAL TO THE UNION 517 

ing all rebels to return to their allegiance within twenty 
days. 

On the same day Governor Magoffin received a dis- 
patch from Simon Cameron, Secretary of War, demand- 
ing "four regiments of militia for immediate service." ^ 
As the Legislature had adjourned, sine die, on April 4, 
the Governor was free to act, in this crisis, without the 
restraint which the presence of a Legislature might have 
imposed; and accordingly replied:' 

"Your dispatch is reviewed. In answer, I say, emphat- 
ically, Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked 
purpose of subduing her sister Southern States." 

This answer naturally aroused the expectancy of the 
Confederacy. It seemed to indicate that Kentucky was 
at last prepared to cast aside her allegiance to the Federal 
Government, and to take her place among the Confederate 
States of America. L. P. Walker, Confederate Secretary of 
War, at once sent the following message ^ to Governor 
Magoffin: 

"Your patriotic response to the requisition of the Presi- 
dent of the United States for troops to coerce the Southern 
States justifies the belief that your people are prepared 
to unite with us in repelling the common enemy of the 
South. ... I therefore request you to furnish one regi- 
ment of infantry without delay to rendezvous at Harper's 
Ferry, Virginia. . ." 

This inference, however, proved broader than the facts 
justified. While heartily approving the governor's de- 



1 Text, Collins, I, p. 87. 

2 Reply dated Frankfort, April 15, 1861. Text, Collins, I, p. 87. 

3 Dated Montgomery, Ala., April 22, 1861. " Official Records," Serial 
No. 127, pp. 231-232. 



5l8 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

nunciatlon of the idea of coercing a Sovereign State/ the 
people of Kentucky were by no means ready to take up 
arms against the Federal Government. Even Magoffin, 
although ardently sympathizing with the cause of the 
Confederacy, was as yet unprepared for so radical a step. 
He realized the dangers to which Kentucky's geographical 
position would expose her, in the event of a civil war, 
and was eager to avoid them. In his inaugural address, he 
had warned his fellow citizens of these dangers, in words 
which show an intensity of conviction not to be mistaken. 
"With seven hundred miles of territory bordering on the 
free States," he had declared, " Kentucky must think . . . 
calmly and act with . . . discretion. ... In the event 
of a separation of these States then indeed would . . . 
she be baptized, in blood and fire, with the significant 
title first won by our heroic fathers of, 'The dark 
and bloody ground.' " ^ He, therefore, promptly and 
positively declined to comply with the request of the 
Confederate Secretary of War,^ and turned his attention 
to the problem of arming the State for her own de- 
fence. 

Having declined to furnish aid to either belligerent, 
Magoffin saw clearly that Kentucky's position was one 
of extreme danger. The Legislature, no longer in session, 
had taken no position whatever with reference to "the 
impending crisis," and no appropriations for military 
equipment, adequate to the new conditions, had been 
made. The State was, therefore, a fair mark for either 



1 See address adopted by the Union State Central Committee, on April i8, 
1861. Text, Collins, I, pp. 87-88. 

2 Text, "Louisville Courier," September 3, 1859. 

3 Reply April 22, 1861. Collins, I, p. 88. 



LOYAL TO THE UNION 519 

army, and her government was in no condition to offer 
resistance in case of invasion.^ 

The Governor's first appeal was to the banks. He 
called upon them for temporary loans for military pur- 
poses; but the response was not encouraging. A few 
offered small sums, but the majority showed no dispo- 
sition thus to dispose of their funds. The Bank of Ken- 
tucky agreed to furnish her quota, but only upon the ex- 
press condition that the money be used for no other 
purpose than, ''arming the State for self-defence and 
protection, to prevent aggression or invasion from either 
the North or the South, and to protect the present status 
of Kentucky in the Union." " 

Just what this "present status," was, is not difficult to 
determine. The popular support which had been given 
to the governor, in his refusal to comply with the requisi- 
tion of the Federal Government, made it evident that her 
connection with the Union was but a theoretical connection; 
while there was no possible ground for claiming any con- 
nection with the Confederate States. She was standing neu- 
tral, and Governor Magofl&n, although a strong south- 
ern sympathizer, as all his messages show, was an eager 
partisan of the doctrine of strict neutrality. If only 
the border States, he believed, could be held in a neu- 

1 The Adjutant-General's report of January 17, 1861, shows that the total 
of arms belonging to the State was 58 pieces of ordnance, 11,283 muskets, 
3,159 rifles and 2,873 cavalry arms. The State Guard consisted of 45 com- 
panies, admirably drilled in rifle tactics and fully armed, a force adequate to 
all the needs of times of peace, but insignificant under existing conditions. 
Figures, Collins, I, p. 86. The Legislature, on April 3, 1861, had appropriated 
$19,400 for the construction of an arsenal at Frankfort (Ibid., p. 87); and some 
of the towns in the State had appropriated money for local armament; but the 
military supplies of the State were absurdly scanty. 

2 For statement of other loans, etc., see Collins, I, p. 88. 



520 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

tral and mediating position, compromise might yet be 
possible. 

He, therefore, opened correspondence with the Governor 
of Missouri, Simon BoHvar Buckner acting as his mes- 
senger, and found that he held similar views, Buckner 
visited next the Governor of Tennessee, who also confessed 
his faith in the wisdom of "mediating neutrality." ^ An 
invitation was then sent (May i, 1861), to the Governors of 
Ohio and Indiana, asking them to join in a plan for medi- 
ation between the Federal Government and the seceding 
States.^ If only a truce can be arranged, Magoffin urged, 
until Congress comes together in extraordinary session, a 
way may be found, by that body, for peacefully adjusting 
the serious sectional issues. He soon discovered, however, 
that these gentlemen would entertain no mediating policy. 
The Governor of Ohio, William Dennison, replied that, in 
his opinion, as the Federal Government was VN^holly in the 
right, the only peaceful solution possible was a return of 
the seceded States to their rightful allegiance; while Gov- 
ernor Morton of Indiana added the emphatic statement, j 
that Kentucky was bound to obey the requisitions madej 
upon her by the President, and hinted that she would bej 
doing herself more credit if, instead of presuming to pose as] 
a mediator, she should take her place with Indiana on the 
side of the Federal Government.^ 

Amid the manifold perplexities of his position. Governor 
Magoffin now decided to again summon the Legislature 
in special session, and to share with it the responsibility 
of meeting the crisis. 

1 Buckner interview, June, 1909. 

2 Collins, I, p. 89. 

3 Ibid. "Annals of Kentucky," date May 1, 1861, quotes the invitation 
and the replies. 



LOYAL TO THE UNION 52 1 

On the sixth of May, it assembled, and the Unionist 
leaders prepared to grapple with the new situation which 
had arisen. As the people of the State had made it abun- 
dantly evident that they approved of the governor's re- 
fusal to furnish troops "for the wicked purpose" of coerc- 
ing the seceded States, but one course was left open to 
the Union men of the Legislature. They must advocate 
"mediating neutrality," a position friendly to both bel- 
ligerents, by which course alone it might be possible to 
prevent action, until after the August elections, when, as 
they confidently believed, the people would declare their 
firm adherence to the Union. 

The position of "mediating neutrality" had been 
strongly advocated, a few weeks earlier,^ by the venerable 
statesman, John J. Crittenden. As Kentucky, he had de- 
clared, has done nothing to bring on this fratricidal war, 
she should not allow herself to be dragged into it, but 
should stand neutral, extending the hand of conciliation 
to both sections. Hold fast to the flag of your country, he 
had urged, and adhere to a position of neutrahty which 
alone can enable you to mediate for peace between the 
warring factions. 

This advice contemplated, not an armed defiance of 
both belligerents, but a position of friendship toward both: 
it assumed the sovereignty of the individual State, a doc- 
trine held by most Kentuckians of that day, whether 

1 Speech at Lexington, April 17, 1861. Collins, I, p. 87. In a letter to 
General Scott, dated May 17, 1861 (quoted in Speed's "Union Cause in Ken- 
tucky," p. 54), Crittenden declares that Kentucky acquiesced in the governor's 
refusal to furnish troops to the Federal Government, "not because she loved 
the Union less, but she feared that if she had parted with those troops . . . 
she would have been overwhelmed by the Secessionists at home, and severed 
from the Union. ... It was to preserve . . . our connection with the Union 
that induced us to acquiesce. ..." 



522 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

Unionist or States' right men, but it spoke clearly for 
loyalty to the Union, and a desire for its preservation. 
Long and intimate connection with the Federal Govern- 
ment had given to Crittenden a deep insight into national 
conditions. He knew the mind of the men who had re- 
cently been called to direct the affairs of the Republic, and 
was able, as few Kentuckians of his day were able, to dis- 
count the wild tales, so generally current in Kentucky, of 
the dark plottings of the Federal administration, against 
the rights and liberties of the South. He did not believe, 
as many a man equally honest firmly believed, that the 
aim of Lincoln's administration was the conquest and sub- 
jugation of the slaveholding States. "The argument 
which has been so often used to disunite us," he had told 
the Kentucky Legislature,^ " — that the North hates the 
South and that the South hates the North — is not true. 
The Almighty has not made us with hearts of such ma- 
lignity as to hate whole classes of our countrymen for the 
sins of a few men. . . ." He believed that, even at this 
eleventh hour, when the tramp of martial footsteps had al- 
ready begun, peace might be restored by the gentle art of 
mediation, and he coveted for his own Commonwealth the 
honor of becoming the mediator. To the men of this gen- 
eration, who can see both before and after, such a belief 
seems the vainest of delusions; but few men will question 
the sincerity and loyalty of this venerable statesman. 

Belief in the ultimate success of a mediating policy was 
greatly strengthened by the report, that President Lincoln 
himself, in a recent conversation with Garret Davis, had 
declared that he would make no military movement against 

1 Address of March 26, 1861. Text, Colenaan's "Crittenden," II, pp. 299- 
316. 



LOYAL TO THE UNION 523 

any State which did not offer armed resistance to the au- 
thorities of the United States. It was also reported that, 
in a similar conversation with Warner L. Underwood, he 
had declared that, while hoping that Kentucky would sus- 
tain the Union in her present difficulties, he would make 
no effort to compel her to do so.^ Positive proof of the 
truthfulness of these reports was scarcely necessary, in view 
of the fact that Mr. Lincoln, in his inaugural address,^ had 
quoted, with approval, the words of the Republican plat- 
form, "... We denounce the lawless invasion, by an 
armed force, of the government of any State or Territory, no 
matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes." 

With such words fresh in their minds, it was not un- 
reasonable for the Unionist leaders of Kentucky to be- 
lieve that she might safely venture to insist upon a neutral 
position, from which she might the more easily exercise 
the office of mediator; but the means by which they pro- 
ceeded to bring about such a declaration were novel, if 
not unprecedented. At their suggestion, six Kentuckians 
were selected, three representing the united Bell-Douglas 
party, and three the Breckinridge Democrats. These, 
after having been approved by their respective parties in 
the Legislature, of which they themselves were not mem- 
bers, were authorized to meet and agree upon some definite 
course of action, to be followed by the Legislature, with 
reference to the great questions then disturbing the nation; 
and it was agreed, in caucus meetings of the respective 
parties in the Legislature, to carry out, by legislative action, 
whatever program the "Six arbiters" should recommend. 

On May 11, 1861, the arbiters met in conference, and 

1 Statement of these reports, Collins, I, p. 88. 

2 Text, Curtis' "Republican Party," I, pp. 382-384. 



524 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

at once John C. Breckinridge and his Democratic col- 
leagues, Governor Magoffin and Richard Hawes, proposed 
that the first recommendation should be, that the Legis- 
lature call a Sovereignty Convention to decide the question 
of whether or not Kentucky should secede from the Union. ^ 
To this course, Crittenden and his Unionist colleagues, 
Archibald Dixon and Samuel S. Nicholas, positively re- 
fused assent, and, after some discussion, it was abandoned. 

The next proposition commanded the approval of all. 
It was to advise the Legislature to declare that Kentucky 
would stand neutral in the conflict between the Federal 
Government and the Confederate States. 

As a natural corollary to this action, the question then 
arose as to what advice should be given regarding the 
raising, arming and drilling of troops for the service of 
the State, and, after a prolonged debate, it was agreed to 
advise the Legislature to create a military board of five 
persons, upon whom should devolve the duty of providing a 
military organization, adequate to the needs of the Com- 
monwealth.^ 

With these recommendations before them, and with 
petitions, praying for a declaration of neutrality, pouring 
in from every section of the State,^ the Legislature faced 
its problems; and on May i6, 1861, the House Committee 

1 Details of the proceedings of the conference of the six arbiters. Collins, 
I, p. 90. 

2 It was further agreed that General Simon Bolivar Buckner should be named 
as a member of this military board, and that, of the other four, two should be 
selected by the three Breckinridge arbiters, and two by those representing the 
Bell-Douglas (Union) party. The Breckinridge arbiters announced, as their 
choice, Governor Magoffin and George W. Johnson. The Unionist members 
selected Archibald Dixon and Samuel Gill. Collins, I, p. 90. 

3 For list of such petitions, representing thirty-one counties, and the chief 
towns of the State, see Collins, I, p. 89. Also Battle, pp. 350-351, 



LOYAL TO THE UNION 525 

on Federal Relations presented a report, urging the adop- 
tion of the following declaration : 

"Considering the deplorable condition of the country, 
and for which the State of Kentucky is in no way respon- 
sible, and looking to the best means of preserving the in- 
ternal peace, and securing the lives, liberty and property 
of the citizens of the State; therefore, 'Resolved by the 
House of Representatives, That this State and the citizens 
thereof should take no part in the civil war now being 
waged, except as mediators and friends to the belligerent 
parties; and that Kentucky should, during the contest, 
occupy the position of strict neutrality. . . .' " ^ 

This was the declaration which the Union leaders had 
contemplated, when suggesting the appointment of the six 
arbiters, and they eagerly sustained it. Its adoption, by a 
large majority ^ of the House, showed clearly that the hope 
of preventing civil war had not yet been abandoned, even 
by some who were not counted as members of the Union 
majority in the Senate. 

" With these resolutions," writes Captain Thomas 
Speed, ^ "there was no concurrence by the Senate, and 
therefore they only reflect the mind of the one body " (i. e., 
the Kentucky House of Representatives). If this were the 
whole truth the charge of bad faith, so freely uttered at the 
time, against the Unionists of the Senate, would be justifi- 
able. The caucuses of both parties, in both Houses of the 
Legislature, had definitely pledged themselves to abide by, 
and carry out by legislation, whatever the "Six Arbiters" 
should agree in recommending."* That recommendation, 

1 Text, Collins, I, pp. 90-91; Speed's "Union Cause in Kentucky," p. 32. 

2 Details of the vote, Collins, I, p. 91. 

3 "Union Cause in Kentucky," p. 32. 

4 Collins, I, p. 90. 



526 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

made by unanimous consent, had been in favor of armed 
neutrality, as the best means of preserving peace. For the 
Senate, controlled by a slight Unionist majority, to de- 
cline to fulfill this pledge would have reflected small credit 
upon its members, but they did not refuse. They failed to 
assent to the resolutions passed by the House, it is true, 
but they adopted a series of their own, declaring,^ that 
Kentucky "will not sever her connection with the national 
government, nor will she take up arms for either of the 
belligerent parties"; and offering her services as medi- 
ator, "... to bring about a just and honorable peace." 

Thus did the policy of neutrality, for the purpose of 
mediation, receive the official sanction of both Houses of 
the Kentucky Legislature; but Governor Magoffin did not 
wait for the action of the Senate. On May 20, he issued a 
proclamation,^ warning all other States, "whether separate 
or united, and especially the ' United States,' and the ' Con- 
federate States,'" to abstain from any movement upon 
the soil of Kentucky, or the occupation of any place what- 
ever within her lawful boundary, until authorized by in- 
vitation or permission of her Legislative and Executive au- 
thorities. This neutral position is assumed, he explains, 
in the hope, "that she [Kentucky] may soon have an op- 
portunity to become a successful mediator between 
them (the belligerent powers) . . ." 

The action of the two houses, together with the Gov- 
ernor's proclamation, definitely committed the State to 
the policy of mediating neutrality, a position which 
"smacked of State Sovereignty," quite as decidedly as 

1 Resolutions presented to the Senate of Kentucky, by John B. Bruner, 
May 24, 1861. Text, Battle's "Kentucky," p. 351, and Collins, I, p. 91. 

2 Full text, Speed's "Union Cause in Kentucky," pp. 47-49. 



LOYAL TO THE UNION 527 

did secession itself; but there was this difference — a dif- 
ference which meant everything to the Union cause in 
Kentucky — an act of secession could not have been easily 
recalled; while a policy of armed neutrality, for the pur- 
pose of mediation, was, by its very nature, limited in 
duration, to the time during which mediation might be 
considered to have some chance of success. 

With a Legislature which had been chosen in 1859, be- 
fore the question of secession had become dominant, the 
discreet policy to be followed by the friends of Union, was 
a waiting policy, in view of their faith in the firm loyalty 
of the voting population of the State; and the policy of 
armed neutrality for the purpose of mediation, made it un- 
necessary for the State to face at once the question of join- 
ing the Confederacy or adhering to the Union. It repre- 
sents, therefore, a victory for the Union cause in Kentucky. 
What this meant to the Union cause in the nation is only 
speculation; but Lincoln himself, as his most authoritative 
biographers^ tell us, had, "from the beginning felt that 
Kentucky would be a turning weight in the scale of war;" 
and it is safe to say that, had she gone over to the ranks of 
secession, she might have carried with her a force which 
would have greatly increased the seriousness of the prob- 
lem which confronted the National Government.^ "If 
Kentucky had gone when Virginia went," says General 
Buckner, "it seems probable that Missouri and Maryland 
would both have followed her," in which event, as General 
Franklin once expressed it, "the war might have gone to 
the Lakes instead of to the gulf." ^ 

1 Nicolay-Hay, "Abraham Lincoln, A History," IV, p. 235. 

2 Shaler, p. 241. 

3 Buckner interview, June, 1909. 



528 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

The Legislature, in which such momentous decisions 
had been made, adjourned, sine die, on the twenty-fourth 
of May,^ having fixed upon the first Monday in Septem- 
ber, as the date for the assembhng of the new Legislature. 
It had been in almost constant session for nearly a year 
and a half, and had debated the great questions of the 
hour with a thoroughness unsurpassed in any part of the 
country. And yet, through it all, there had continued, 
unbroken, the most kindly and generous relations among 
its members. 

"When the final session closed," says General Hodge,^ 
"as its members parted, and clasped hands in adieu, they 
bade each other God speed — well knowing that commis- 
sions in the Federal army were already signed for many, 
and that, for many more. Confederate soldiers were wait- 
ing as leaders; knowing, too, that when they met again to 
argue the question, it would be at the assize of blood. . . ." 

Throughout the entire Commonwealth, at that same 
moment, the choice was being made. The hour had come 
"when brother shall rise against brother." "Topographi- 
cal position, or peculiarity of property, seemed to have no 
influence in the decision. The planters of the tobacco re- 
gion, cultivating their fields exclusively by slave labor, 
turned their backs upon their plantations and went to 
range themselves in the ranks of the Federal army; while 
from the northern border, entirely denuded of its slave 
population, men who had never owned a slave and whose 
most valuable possessions lay in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, 
committed their families to God's keeping and rode away 

1 Collins, I, p. 91. 

2 Gen. Geo. B. Hodge of Newport, Ky., author of the closing chapter of the 
"Outline History." Collins, I, pp. 341 et seq. 



LOYAL TO THE UNION 529 

into the southern lines." ^ Yet there was little bitterness, 
little of the passion and hatred which usually attend civil 
war movements. Lifelong friends parted, to go their 
separate ways, not with the taunt that stings, but with the 
clasp of the hand that means a friendship which even the 
extremest differences of political faith cannot destroy. It 
was not in Kentucky, as it was in some sections of the 
country, a decision of the leaders, blindly followed by the 
masses.^ The choice was made by each man for himself. 

Three days after the adjournment of the Legislature, the 
Border Slave State Convention met at Frankfort. Of 
its seventeen members,^ the twelve who represented Ken- 
tucky had been elected in the belief that they were ar- 
dently loyal to the Union; '^ and the vote of one hundred 
and seven thousand three hundred and thirty-four, which 
had been cast for them, shows how overwhelming was the 
Union sentiment in the State, being only thirty-eight thou- 
sand five hundred and twenty-eight less than the entire 
vote which the State had cast for the four Presidential 
tickets in 1860,^ and only thirty-six thousand one hundred 
and thirty-six less than the entire vote cast in the guber- 

1 "Outline History of Kentucky," Collins, I, p. 342. Garrett Davis, in a 
letter to General McClellan, presents quite a different view: "The sympathy 
for the South and the inclination to secession among our people is much stronger 
in the southwestern corner of the State than it is in any other part, and as you 
proceed towards the upper section of the Ohio River and our Virginia line it 
gradually becomes weaker, until it is almost wholly lost." "Official Records," 
II, p. 678. 

2 Shaler, pp. 253-254. 

3 Collins, I, p. 89, for names of Kentucky delegates, all Unionists, who had 
been elected on May 4, 1861; and, Ibid., p. 91, for names of the Missouri and 
Tennessee delegates, etc. 

4 Speed's " Union Cause in Kentucky," p. 46; Collins, I, p. 89, for details 
of the election. The Southern rights ticket had been withdrawn, before the 
election, by order of the State Central Committee. 

5 Details of vote for President in i860, Collins, I, p. 84. 

Kentucky — 34 



530 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

natorial election of 1859.^ John J. Crittenden presided 
over the Convention, which expressed its continued faith in 
the principle of armed neutrality for the purpose of medi- 
ation, in an address, urging the people of the seceded 
States to reexamine the question of the necessity for their 
act of withdrawal from the Union. "If you find it has 
been taken without due consideration, as we verily be- 
lieve, . . . then we pray you to return promptly to your 
connection with us, that we may be in future, as we have 
been in the past, one great, powerful, and prosperous na- 
tion. 

The question of Kentucky's position of mediating neu- 
trality now began to attract the attention of the Federal 
authorities. Early in June, 1861, General Simon Bolivar 
Buckner, Inspector General of the Kentucky Militia, re- 
ceived an invitation from General George B. McClellan, 
Commander of the United States troops in States north of 
the Ohio, to meet him at Cincinnati, and discuss this sub- 
ject. Buckner telegraphed his old friend, Sam Gill, a 
Union man, to join him, and together they crossed the 
Ohio, and repaired to the appointed place, where, says 
Gill, ^ "we soon entered into a free and unreserved ex- 
pression of opinion in regard to many matters connected 
with the present political difficulties." After some dis- 
cussion. General McClellan agreed to a definite policy with 
regard to Kentucky, an agreement which General Buckner 
regarded as binding upon the Federal Government. The 
following is Buckner's official report of the interview.^ 

1 Details of vote in election at which Beriah Magoffin was chosen governor, 
August I, 1859, Collins, I, p. 8i. 

2 Gill to Buckner, Louisville, July 25, 1861 (MS.). 

3 I am indebted to General Buckner himself for the text of this letter, which, 
he thinks has not been before published. 



LOYAL TO THE UNION 531 

"Gen. Buckner to Gov. Magoffin. 
"Headquarters, Ky. St. Guard. 

"Louisville, June loth, 1861. 

"Sir: On the 8th inst. at Cincinnati, Ohio, I entered 
into an agreement with Maj. Gen. G. B. McClellan, Com- 
mander of the U. S. troops in the States north of the Ohio 
river, to the following effect. 

"The authorities of the State of Kentucky are to protect 
the U. S. property within the limits of the State, to enforce 
the laws of the U. S. in accordance with the interpretations 
of the U. S. Courts, as far as the law may be applicable 
to Kentucky, and to enforce with all the power of the State 
our obligations of neutrality as against the Southern States, 
as long as the position we have assumed shall be respected 
by the United States. 

"Gen. McClellan stipulates that the territory of Ken- 
tucky shall be respected on the part of the U. States, even 
though the Southern States should occupy it; but in the 
latter case he will call upon the authorities of Kentucky 
to remove the Southern forces from our territory. Should 
Kentucky fail to accomplish this object in a reasonable 
time, Gen. McClellan claims the same right of occupancy 
given to the Southern forces. I have stipulated in that case 
to advise him of the inability of Kentucky to comply with 
her obligations and to invite him to dislodge the Southern 
forces. He stipulates that if he is successful in doing so he 
will withdraw his forces from the territory of the State, as 
soon as the Southern forces shall have been removed, 

"This he assures me is the policy which he will adopt 
towards Kentucky. 

"Should the administration hereafter adopt a different 
policy he is to give me timely notice of the fact. Should the 



532 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

State of Kentucky hereafter assume a different attitude 
he is in Hke manner to be advised of the fact. 

"The well-known character of Gen. McClellan is a 
sufficient guaranty for the fulfillment of every stipulation 
on his part. 

"I am, sir, very respectfully, 

"Your Obt. Svt., 

"S. B. BUCKNER, 

"Inspector General. 
"To His Exc. B. Magoffin. 
"Frankfort, Ky."i 

General Buckner's view of the nature of this under- 
standing is clearly expressed in this report, and, from a 
letter, written by McClellan three days after the interview,^ 
it is evident that he, also, regarded it as official and binding. 
The letter is a formal demand upon the Governor of Ken- 
tucky for a fulfillment of the terms of that understanding, 
and reads thus: 

"Cincinnati, June ii, 1861. 
"Gov. B. Magoffin: 

" I have received information that Tennessee troops are 
under orders to occupy Island number one, six miles bt- 
low Cairo. In accordance with my understanding with 
Gen. Buckner, I call upon you to prevent this step. Do 
you regard the Islands in the Mississippi River above the 

1 Col. Sam Gill has left a written account of this agreement and conference, 
corresponding exactly with the above account from the pen of General Buckner. 
It was printed in the "Clarksville Jeffersonian," of September 13, 1861, files 
of which were kindly opened to my inspection by W. W. Barksdale, editor of 
the "Leaf Chronicle" of Clarksville, Tenn. 

2 For this, also, I am indebted to General Buckner. 



LOYAL TO THE UNION 533 

Tennessee line, as within your jurisdiction, and if so, what 
ones ? 

" Respectfully, 

"G. B. McClellan. 
"Adj. Gen. U. S. A." 

In reply, Magoffin informed McClellan that he had sent 
General Buckner to Paducah with, "orders to carry out 
his understanding with you." ^ 

These letters show conclusively that the agreement at 
Cincinnati was regarded by General McClellan, as well as 
by General Buckner, as binding upon both parties. It 
was certainly, so far as could be done by a Federal com- 
mander in the field, a recognition of Kentucky neutrality. 

Meanwhile, a Confederate flag, floating proudly in the 
breeze at Columbus, Kentucky, was captured and hauled 
down by some Federal troops from Cairo; ^ as a result of 
which insignificant incident General Buckner started for 
Cairo, to have another discussion with General McClellan. 
He was accompanied by Judge Bigger, Colonel Bullock 
and George Barrett. 

After presenting his friends to the Federal commander. 
General Buckner requested General McClellan to state 
again the substance of the agreement, recently entered 
into between them at Cincinnati. 

McClellan, at once seeing the meaning of the request, 
declared, as a preliminary, that, "the expedition the day 
before was not made with the view of visiting Columbus, 
but to reconnoitre some Tennessee troops who, they had 

iMagoflfin to McClellan, Frankfort, June 11, 1861 (MS.). Also Magoffin 
to Buckner, Frankfort, June ii, 1861 (MS.), for the governor's notice to Buck- 
ner concerning McClellan's demand. 

2 E. J. Bullock to General Buckner, Columbus, Ky., June 29, 1861 (MS.). 



534 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

learned, had quartered on one of the islands of the Missis- 
sippi, and that they had positive orders not to land else- 
where on the Kentucky shore." ^ He then restated the 
agreement made at Cincinnati, adding that, "the troops 
under his command were volunteers, and that when he was 
not with them they might disobey his commands, as was 
the case the day before . . . that if the troops were regu- 
lars he could control them, but that volunteers were not so 
easily managed. . . ." ^ According to E. J. Bullock's ac- 
count of the conversation, he further declared, " that Ken- 
tucky was to be left to take charge of her own citizens, and 
positively stated that if any application was made to him 
for assistance from any of the citizens of Kentucky, he 
would refer them to the judicial and military authorities of 
Kentucky, and extend no aid himself. ..." 

The news of this magnanimous attitude, on the part of 
the Federal commander, quickly spread through Kentucky, 
and doubtless had the effect of turning a few uncertain 
votes into the ranks of the Kentucky Unionists. Although, 
as the result of the special election for choosing members of 
Congress (which occurred only a week after this inter- 
view ^), clearly shows, the Union sentiment in Kentucky 
was already overwhelmingly strong. The definite ques- 

1 Geo. Barrett to General Buckner, Paducah, Ky., July 2, 1861 (MS.). 

2 Besides the written account of this interview by Geo. Barrett, which has 
just been quoted, I have before me written accounts by J. M. Bigger and E. J. 
Bullock, the two other witnesses to the interview. Their accounts exactly 
correspond with that given above. J. M. Bigger's account, however, de- 
clares: ". . . It is due to Major General McClellan to say that I did not under- 
stand him to pledge his Government to this line of policy, but to state his own 
line of policy as the Commander of the United States forces if left untrammelled 
by instructions from his Government." 

3 Election of June 20, 1861. President Lincoln had called a special meeting 
of Congress for July 4, 1861, and this made it necessary for Kentucky to hold 

a special election- Speed's "Union Cause in Kentucky," p. 88. , 



LOYAL TO THE UNION 535 

tion before the people in that election was ** Union or dis- 
union"; and the vote presents a total Union majority 
of fifty-four thousand seven hundred and sixty.^ The 
friends of the Union carried every Congressional district 
except one, a fact w^hich clearly indicated that the period 
of greatest peril had passed for Kentucky, and that, 
after the regular elections of August, the State govern- 
ment w^ould come into the hands of men who loved the 
Union, and who would keep Kentucky secure in her place 
therein. 

In the meantime, the fact that General McClellan had 
definitely accepted Kentucky's neutral position had led 
Governor Magoffin to believe that an official acknowl- 
edgment of it might be secured from President Lincoln 
himself. He accordingly dispatched General Buckner to 
Washington, with orders to explain to Lincoln the plan 
by which Kentucky hoped to check the rising conflict be- 
tween the seceded States and the Federal Government, 
and, if possible, to secure his approval of that plan. On 
July 9th, accompanied by John J. Crittenden, Buckner 
met the President, who, he says,- "wrote and handed me 
the following paper. He accounted for the absence of his 
signature by saying that he did not intend to write a 'proc- 
lamation,' but to give me a paper, on which I could base 
my statements of his policy, and which would be my evi- 
dence hereafter, if any difi^erence should arise relative to 
that policy, and he appealed to Mr. Crittenden, who was 
present, to identify the paper in any way that he thought 

* Vote by districts, with names of candidates, etc., Collins, I, p. 92. Fuller 
details. Speed's "Union Cause in Kentucky," pp. 88-89. 
^Clarksville " Jeffersonian," Sept. 13, i86i. 



536 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

proper. This was done by the latter gentleman's subjoin- 
ing his initials." 

The original manuscript is unfortunately lost/ but the 
copy here presented is reproduced from a photograph of 
the text, as printed in the " JefFersonian " of Clarksville, 
Tennessee, September 13, 1861, where General Buckner 
himself inserted it. 

In giving this document to the public, General Buckner 
made this statement of his interpretation of its meaning i^ 

"I learned, when in Washington, from some of the 
friends of the President, that he was exceedingly tender- 
footed on the meaning of certain terms. He was not will- 
ing to 'respect' the neutral position of Kentucky, for that 
would be to acknowledge her right to assume it; but he 
was entirely willing to 'observe' it." During the con- 
versation, he says, "The President succeeded in impress- 
ing upon me the belief, that, 'as long as there are roads 
around Kentucky,' to reach the rebellion, it was his pur- 
pose to leave her unmolested, not yielding her right to the 
position she occupied, but observing it as a matter of 
policy." 

To what extent this document, given out by Lincoln for 
the express purpose of strengthening the Union cause in 
Kentucky, affected the elections of August, 1861, no one 
may now declare with certainty. There can be little doubt, 
however, that it had its effect, when taken in conjunction 
with a foolish speech of Walker, the Confederate Secretary 
of War, who openly declared that the Confederate States 

1 "I later gave the manuscript to a friend for safe-keeping. . Soon afterward 
he was called away to Arkansas, and I was never afterward able to recover the 
document." Buckner interview of June, 1909. ; 

2 " Clarksville Jeffersonian," September 13, 1861. ! 





■*"f1^ 



8J':i>iivvij:ki,y, vol 2. 



Till! (i.ti'hsril.LK JF,m:ltSOMk\ 



^lislieti flesja; ami Hhf lfeolD|s. 



^i^^w- ^ t ^mM ^ ^'- ti^ ifl.-*s,- 



■y ^ ■> ^ i i t»v' , .cjff» vs^»4a.w>w 



/ ^ 

\ 







A good 
l>]y at tlo*. 



r&Tier, Ap- 
#lii»e 25, l<r61. 



i&fl^ tte Coufedonife^ 
l^iuckj. We ioft 
vary !ato in tho *Te 
untesd the FederaU t 



RooKii W. H4N0 
gentleiiiai) has ^MiM. 
ODolcy of th« Ji|;^|ii. 
Camp J3ooiie;^ Fik 



.Iftl1|^;«|i^||0i t^th the subject pf the 
neutrality b£3K6Utuckj, it yras-gt^d some 
months agOjtipt)n the authdrit;^ of Gen.S- 
B. Bubfctii^1«'*ho was a;t that time Inspector 
Geri^rdtirtbe; State troops, that the Fed- 
eral authorities had agreed tq perdiii; Ken- 
tuefcy to occupy a neviixaiju^^Q^ ia the 
presjent conflict^ 4^ J|^|^^^sed[ not to 

queg>f^^|^^^^^1ieG of this statement, 
l%,n, then in command of the 
J^^44- forces in Western Virginia, so- 
noURced. thron^h a ttlegraph dispatch, that Jq^. ^ fUit0A%, 
he ficver tr.tirc] !;. :j hu.h ua t^texunml ^ 

irilh Gtn. Bu ii^cr. and siQe« tb&t ttwt [ J^K .11 F i'O 



GxN. S. B. Brrv 
eommander of the f 
Ken tacky, has been 
io this cit^-. It is I. 
receivfed a Brignaio- 
Gi>nftederate servioo, 
Caffip Boone will cor. 



."| iBi <»V|ni i |i^ 




Cuk«&fAI# |ti»U«r 
eie«rt| ttolNf tU C' 



1« It f«j>»rt*' 



111. 



ia i«i$UMt&« i^ 



The document given to General Simon Bolivar Buckner by President 
Lincoln, stating his attitude toward Kentucky neutrality 

{Photograph of page of ClarksviUe Jejfersonian) 



^ ^y\ »ft, rr\\\ 

of Kont«i»V)- 

pf K iHffftfcnt 
•v) , then yon 
i j^liouM Ken 
hen you wcvr 
oerU McClel- 
Sat iCuntMcky 
> iLe Unite 

cvtimxmmot' 
.^order, h« bfld 
vCfS upon the 
irous of avo'd 
ire, ho had in^ 
bad removed 
^e<F put there 
ag the city of 

r General Mc- 
en, Crank and 
, it ts due to 
l^hat I did not 
•rnment to this 
I line of policy 
Mates forcts if 
omhisGorern- 

r lliatl fhould 
word of Major 
kcd to nn- itfter 
« couverRAtion, 
giously oliM^rv- 
lUti. lie »'--o 



H\\\ nu«t linhtlMtl |tti« I III* Oitit/wiiig pNftitf 

tf l^iHUH nil (lilt thMrkii ui' lh»> ^Akftn" »fh\]n 

ttt«llt^>iiiUofi« bf }'tnnl(lt>}if, liihO'/ln'ii i»ifiil 

n« M)oo»»ttl(»il fttt- ihn nljiotuxj ol' liiH »iiKfi«» 

tur<), by (*NyiiiK tlmt Iia tliil ttol )nf(*n') Yf) 

Nvrltn d "prtvlntnnttnn,*' t)«lt io givo no n 

)^nper, on whto\k t oouhl basd f!i;f Kffile< 

inenis of his pulley, and wtiioh would Imp 

my (^vidcnoe horcaffcr, if nny fUfferince 

ftliould arise reblivA to thftt policy ; Aoi b« 

«l>ponloil to Mr CritWrnion. who Was {>rc-- 

sent, to idtntify tho paper Id any way that 

Uq IhougUt j>roper. TWa wa« done by the 
y lattn potttlctnati's auItjot Dlng Kt| ijajfiila. : 4>laca».I luto Veep 
or -^-^e rollowing ii ITie Iftpor honl^ me -«rpoxLubJo_citizcns . 



I utt- tl u'li AmL 

/"»Ulp»«r»«*"l (« twjr f| 
|i»'rinit thuni i|»fvnl; 
matid <»niraiiV>i4 U> 
tion. If) j/^^*'*^ 

iur<T«ii occa^MOiif 
wsre f(/rtiitt(i ill £brii 
sit! on upon tbe op, 
o)»nnon turned tip 
zcnn of the low* h 
not a word of asj»u 
tection bad been ad 
Since I Lave* ti 



I inent are setuoe ti 



It is tny duty, as I conceive, to suppress an in- 
surrection existing within the United St»teB>- 
I wish Io do this with the least jiosaiMe diBtut-^- 
ance or annoyance to w»il disposed people any- 
where. So far I have not sent an arraed force 
into Kentucky; nor have I any preseht purpose 
to do 80. I sincerely desire •iba4>>*6r necessity 
tor it may*be presented; but I mean tosayiioti', 
ing-^bich shall be^eafte^ embarri* m«f in Jthe 
performance of what .igay seem to b© by JitHy. 

July 10, 1861. 
[Signed,] J. J.c. 

This memorandum was handed to mc by t*resi- 
dent A. Lincoln, in the EwcuUt* CUamber, ' 
Washington, on the lOlb July, 186l» iivifc© pre- 
sence of Hon. J. J. Crittenden, who* »l t^» ''^- 
8iauce of the President, witnessed U by amking 
it. ith his initials. S.II.BUCOIR. 



s 

of occupying it, an 
0)r" seizing x)tbor 
ctourso of proceed! t 
make: but I am pi 
agree to withdraw 
froDj Kentucky pn 
that the troopaof 
be wubdrawQ sitiiv 
ranteo 'phich I wi 
».ho Confederate 
•rals shall not bo 
py any point of Y 
I havu ih« huu« 
vant, rcspouti'Mliy. 






., 



Though the paper is not peoeraUjr oW* 
tcteii-ed with uliecte^if, «^ir« UI !• -t • 



1/ ' 



LOYAL TO THE UNION 537 

did not want Kentucky as an ally, but as a battleground.^ 
But no mere incidents of politics can serve to explain 
the Union majorities which that election shows. The only 
adequate explanation is the fact that the heart of Ken- 
tucky was with the Union. The vote was but a repetition 
of all that had preceded it, since the question of the pres- 
ervation of the Union had become the dominant question 
of the day, and resulted in an overwhelming victory for the 
Union cause. Seventy-six Unionists were elected to seats 
in the lower House, as against twenty-four States' rights 
men; and the new State Senate was given a Unionist ma- 
jority of sixteen,^ which would doubtless have been even 
greater but for the fact that one-half of the seats were not 
involved in the election.^ 

All anxiety as to the loyalty of Kentucky was thus dis- 
pelled, while, just before the elections, news of the battle of 
Bull Run (fought July 21, 1861) had made it evident that 
the time for mediation had passed, and that the position of 
neutrality must be abandoned, as soon as the new Legis- 
lature should convene. 

So far neither belligerent had attempted any explicit 
violation of Kentucky neutrality. Recruiting stations had 
been established just beyond the borders, by both parties, 
and were drawing numbers of eager young volunteers into 
their ranks; but the soil of the Pioneer Commonwealth, 
was as yet unoccupied by the forces of either the Union or 

1 Buckner interview, June, 1909. "A remark, attributed to Howell Cobb, 
of Georgia, that the Southern men would only have, 'to go home, raise cotton, 
and make money,' leaving the war to the border States," naturally also worked 
powerfully toward strengthening the Union sentiment in Kentucky. Shaler, 
p. 249. 

2 Details of the election of August 5, 1861, Collins, I, p. 92. 

3 The Senate was elected every four years, one-half its membership being 
elected each second year. 



538 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

the Confederacy.^ But close upon the August elections 
came the news that Brigadier General William Nelson 
had established, in Gerrard County, a Union camp, called 
Camp Dick Robinson, ^ into which he was gathering, pre- 
sumably with the President's authority, Federal sympa- 
thizers "from northeastern, central, and central southern 
Kentucky," 

This was felt by Governor Magoffin to be a distinct 
violation of Kentucky's neutral position, which both 
General McClellan and the President had agreed to ob- 
serve. He therefore sent a commission to Washington,^ 
with instructions to protest against this invasion of Ken- 
tucky neutrality, and to urge the removal of Camp Dick 
Robinson. 

Mr. Lincoln's reply is of unusual interest.^ 

"Washington, D. C, August 24, 1861. 
"To His Excellency B. Magoffin, 

"Governor of State of Kentucky. 

"Sir: — Your letter of the 19th inst., in which you, ^ urge 
the removal from the limits of Kentucky of the military force 
now organized, and in camp within said State,' is received. 

" I may not possess full and precisely accurate knowledge 
upon this subject; but I believe it is true that there is a 

1 On July 15, 1861, a Confederate recruiting station had been established 
at Camp Boone, eight miles from Clarksville, Tenn., and several regiments of 
Kentucky volunteers had been there enlisted for the Confederacy (Collins, I, 
p. 92). At about the same time Federal recruiting stations had been established 
at Camp Clay, just opposite Newport, Ky., and at Camp Joe Holt, opposite 
Louisville, where Kentucky volunteers for Federal service were being enrolled 
(Ibid.); but these camps could not fairly be claimed to have violated Kentucky 
neutrality. See also Ed. Porter Thompson's "First Kentucky Brigade," p. 50. 

2 Details of establishment of this Federal camp, Collins, I, p. 92. 

3 Collins, I, p. 92, for names, etc. 

* Text furnished by General Buckner. The italics indicate the passage un- 
derscored in the MS. 



LOYAL TO THE UNION 539 

military force in camp within Kentucky, acting by au- 
thority of the United States, which force is not very large, 
and is not now being augmented. 

" I also believe this force consists exclusively of Ken- 
tuckians, having their camp in the immediate vicinity of 
their own homes, and not assailing, or menacing, any of 
the good people of Kentucky. 

"In all I have done in the premises, I have acted upon 
the urgent solicitation of many Kentuckians, and in accord- 
ance with what I believed, and still believe, to be the wish 
of a majority of all the Union-loving people of Kentucky. 

"While I have conversed with many eminent men of 
Kentucky, including a large majority of her members of 
Congress, I do not remember that any one of them, or 
any other person, except your Excellency and the bearers 
of your Excellency's letter, has urged me to remove the 
military force from Kentucky, or to disband it. One other 
very worthy citizen of Kentucky did solicit me to have 
the augmenting of the force suspended for a time. 

"Taking all the reasons within my reach to form a 
judgment, I do not believe it is the popular wish of Ken- 
tucky that this force shall be removed beyond her limits; 
and with this impression, I must respectfully decline to so 
remove it. 

"I most cordially sympathize with your Excellency, in 
the wish to preserve the peace of my own native State, 
Kentucky; but it is with regret I search, and can not find, 
in your not very short letter, any declaration, or intima- 
tion, that you entertain any desire for the preservation of 
the Federal Union. 

"Your obedient Servant, 

"A. Lincoln." 



540 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

This reply was by no means reassuring, and that which 
President Davis gave to a similar commission,^ sent to ask 
a pledge of continued respect for Kentucky's neutral posi- 
tion, was even a bit menacing. "The Confederacy," 
wrote Davis, "will continue to respect the neutrality of 
Kentucky, so long as the people of Kentucky will maintain 
it themselves. But neutrality to be entitled to respect, must 
be strictly maintained between both parties." ^ 

This clearly meant that President Davis designed to re- 
spect Kentucky's neutral position only so long as she 
forced the United States to respect it, and this fact was 
made still more evident, about a week later (September 3, 
1 861), when Confederate troops from Tennessee passed 
over the borders and deliberately entrenched themselves 
at Hickman and Columbus.^ That this was done as a 
hint to Kentucky that the Confederacy regarded Camp 
Dick Robinson as a proof that she favored the Union, can- 
not be positively ^stated ; but, it was plainly not the act of a 
power disposed to respect Kentucky's neutrality. 

The question as to which of these movements first vio- 
lated neutrality was then, as now, dijflficult to answer. Un- 
doubtedly the Federal station. Camp Dick Robinson, was 
first established, but it was a station commanded by a 
Kentuckian, and occupied exclusively by Kentucky volun- 
teers, while the invading Confederate forces, although en- 

1 Geo. W. Johnson was sent, on the same day (August 19, 1861), to Rich- 
mond, to get assurance from Jefferson Davis that the Confederate Government 
would continue to respect the neutrality of Kentucky. Magofi&n's letter to 
President Davis is given in the "War Records," Series I, Vol. IV, p. 378. 

2 Davis to Magoffin. "War Records," Series I, Vol. IV, p. 396. 

3 Major General Leonidas Polk, "The Fighting Bishop of Tennessee," was 
in command of this invading army. At about the same time, General Zollicoffer 
entered the southeastern corner of the State and established Confederate lines 
near Cumberland Gap. Collins, I, p. 93; Shaler, p. 250. 



LOYAL TO THE UNION 541 

tering Kentucky some time later, were "alien troops." It 
seems therefore only fair to say, as the Kentucky Legis- 
lature promptly said, that the Confederates had violated 
the neutrality of Kentucky, and that prompt restitution 
from her was a just and reasonable demand. 

Under these conditions, the new Kentucky Legislature, 
which assembled on September 2, was watched with 
anxious interest, by the neighboring States, and especially 
by Tennessee, whose interests were deeply involved with 
those of Kentucky. The "Clarksville Chronicle" ^ thus 
sums up what it considers to be the position of the latter: 

"The position of the Kentucky Legislature is a most 
embarrassing one. If it declare for neutrality, a war with 
Lincoln must be the consequence, because that neutralitv 
cannot be forced without driving out his troops. If it 
declare for Lincoln, the Confederate States will, at once, 
make Kentucky a battle-ground; and if the Legislature 
attempt the inefficient policy of 'holding with the hare 
whilst running with the hounds,' it will leave the matter 
just where it is, the State invaded by both belligerents, 
and fast becoming the theatre of a desolating civil war. 
From this there is no escape, and Kentucky must take her 
stand on the one side or the other. Neutrality is an ex- 
ploded humbug, there is no longer a chance to avert the 
war which it was intended to stave off. All that remains 
for the people to do is to decide whether they will fight for 
the South and liberty, or for the North and despotism." 

These words show surprising lack of insight into the 
real significance of the recent August elections in Ken- 
tucky. In the vote, cast at those elections, her people had 
already decided this question, by giving the government of 

1 Issue of September 13, 1861. 



542 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

their State into the hands of an ardent Union majority. 
And, even while the Tennessee editor was preparing the 
editorial just quoted, their representatives were carrying 
out their instructions. 

On September 7, the Stars and Stripes had been raised 
over the capitol buildings, and the Governor had informed 
the Legislature that a protest had been sent to General 
Polk, commander of the Confederate forces now encamped 
within the State, denouncing his unnecessary violation of 
Kentucky's neutral territory, and demanding the with- 
drawal of his troops. General Polk had courteously re- 
plied, that the Confederate troops would be withdrawn, 
provided the^ State authorities would see to it that the 
Federal troops,"^ emramped within the State, should be 
simultaneously baniaj^: and that the Confederate troops 
would remain outside^|^htucky territory, if the Federal 
troops would consenMJipWo the same.^ This was a just 
proposal, if we consi^r Camp Dick Robinson an establish- 
ment in violation of neutral rights, and if we consider that 
Kentucky still occupied a neutral position; but the ma- 
jority of the new Kentucky Legislature looked at the ques- 
tion in a manner, quite diflrerent from this. They con- 
sidered themselves definitely instructed, by the vote which 
had given them control of the State, to act with the Union, 
and had, therefore, on September 11, two days before 
the appearance of the article above quoted, passed a joint 
resolution, instructing the governor to inform those con- 
cerned, " that Kentucky expects the Confederate or Tennes- 
see troops to be withdrawn from her soil, unconditionally.^ 

1 Ed. Porter Thompson's "First Kentucky Brigade," p. 283. 

2 "Journal of Kentucky Senate," September 11, 1861, for text and vote of 
21 to 8; "Journal of House," Ibid., for House vote of 71 to 26. 



LOYAL TO THE UNION 543 

In the House, just after the vote had been taken, Mr. 
King moved the additional resolution : "That the Gov- 
ernor be requested to demand from those in authority the 
immediate withdrawal of the Federal troops from the 
Southwestern part of the State. . . ."; ^ but this was 
voted down by a majority of sixty-eight to twenty-nine.^ 

The joint resolution concerning the Confederate troops, 
having been presented to Governor Magoffin, it was 
promptly vetoed, his message •'' declaring, "unless ... it 
is the purpose of the General Assembly to abandon entirely 
all pretense of neutrality, and to commit Kentucky to ac- 
tive co-operation with the United States Government . . . 
I cannot conceive why notice shall be given to one party, 
and refused to the other. . . ." 

The response of the General Assembly, however, was 
prompt and decisive. As soon as the veto message had 
been read, the resolution was reenacted,^ "the objections 
of the Governor to the contrary notwithstanding." 

The meaning of this vote is obvious. To demand, by 
legislative action, the withdrawal of the Confederate forces, 
while declining, by an almost equal majority, to make a 
similar demand of the Federal troops, was to assert an 
unmistakable sympathy with the Federal cause: and, as 
if to prevent all doubt of this fact, the House committee 
on Federal Relations reported to the House the following 
"Preamble and Resolutions," ^ which mark the point at 

1 Full text, "Journal of House," September 11, 1861, p. 83. 

2 Names, etc., "Journal of House," September ii, 1861, p. 84. 

3 Text of veto message, "Journal of House," September 13, 1861, p. loi; 
"Journal of Senate," Ibid., p. 99. 

4 " Journal of House," September 13, 1861, pp. 103-104, for vote 68 to 26; 
Ibid., " Journal of Senate," p. 100, by 25 to g. 

5 September 18, 1861. Text, "Journal of House," p. 153. 



544 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

which Kentucky officially abandoned neutrality, and de- 
clared her adherence to the Union of States. 

"Whereas, Kentucky has been invaded by the forces 
of the so-called Confederate States, and the commanders 
of the forces so invading the State have insolently pre- 
scribed the conditions upon which they will withdraw, thus 
insulting the dignity of the State by demanding terms to 
which Kentucky cannot listen without dishonor; there- 
fore, 

"(i) Be it resolved by the General Assembly of the 
Commonwealth of Kentucky, that the invaders must be 
expelled; inasmuch as there are now in Kentucky, Federal 
troops assembled for the purpose of preserving the tran- 
quillity of the State, and of defending and protecting the 
people of Kentucky, in the peaceful enjoyment of their 
lives and property. It is — 

" (2) Further Resolved, that General Robert Anderson, 
a native Kentuckian, who has been appointed to the com- 
mand of the department of Cumberland, be requested to 
take instant command, with authority and power from this 
Commonwealth to call out a volunteer force in Ken- 
tucky for the purpose of repelling the invaders from our 
soil. 

"(3) Resolved that, in using the means which duty and 
honor require to expel the invaders from the soil of Ken- 
tucky, no citizen shall be molested on account of his po- 
litical opinions; that no citizen's property shall be taken or 
confiscated because of such opinions, nor shall any slave 
be set free by any military commander, and that all peace- 
able citizens and their families are entitled to, and shall 
receive, the fullest protection of the government in the en- 
joyment of their lives, their liberties, and their property. 



LOYAL TO THE UNION 545 

"(4) Resolved, that his Excellency, the Governor of 
the Commonwealth of Kentucky, be requested to give all 
the aid in his power to accomplish the end desired by these 
resolutions and, that he call out so much of the military 
force of the State under his command as may be necessary 
therefor, and that he place the same under the command 
of General Thomas L. Crittenden. 

" (5) Resolved, that the patriotism of every Kentuckian 
is involved, and is confidently relied upon to give active 
aid in the defense of the Commonwealth." 

These resolutions, having passed the House by an over- 
whelming majority,^ were sent to the Senate, where they 
were adopted by a vote of twenty-six to nine.^ 

It yet remained for the governor to pass upon them, 
and Magoffin, true to his Confederate principles, refused 
his assent, giving his reasons in a veto message of force 
and dignity.^ His veto, however, was promptly over- 
ridden; and, by a vote of sixty-nine to twenty-one in the 
House,^ and of twenty-four to ten in the Senate,^ the 
resolutions were reenacted, "the objections of the governor 
to the contrary notwithstanding." 

At this point closes the history of Kentucky's neutrality, 
and at this point begins the history of her part in the 

1 The vote was taken upon each of the five resolutions separately. As this 
is the vote which marks the definite abandonment of the neutral position, I 
insert the details, from the "Journal of the House," September, 1861, pp. 154. 

1st Resolution carried in House 73 to 23 

2d " " " " 69 to 27 

3d " " " " 93 to 3 

4th " " " " 72 to 24 

5th " " " " 73 to 23 

2 "Journal of Senate," September, i86r, p. 131, for vote. 

3 Text of veto message, " Journal of Senate," September, 1861, p. 144. 
* "Journal of House," September 20, 1861, pp. 178-179. 

5 " Journal of Senate," September 20, 1861, p. 146. 
Kentucky — 35 



546 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

war for the Union. Amid perplexities, temptations and 
dangers, greater, perhaps, than those that threatened any 
other State, she had striven for Union and peace; and, 
when peace was seen to be unattainable, she had declared 
for Union and war. 



A CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF 
KENTUCKY HISTORY 

A. The Primary Sources consist of State documents and other public 
and private records; together with a number of accounts of important 
events, written by the actors themselves, or by others under the personal 
supervision and criticism of the actors. In this class must be included: 

I. "Journal of Christopher Gist." The first published description 
of the Kentucky district, as distinguished from other portions of the 
great West, is Christopher Gist's "Journal" of an expedition through 
Kentucky in 1751, published in Pownall's "Topographical Description 
of the Middle Colonies of North America" (London, J. Almon, 1776), 
Appendix VI. 

The expedition was made for the purpose of locating lands for the 
Ohio Company, and the topographical descriptions are, therefore, very 
carefully prepared. 

The map annexed to this volume is the well known map of Lewis 
Evans, first published in 1755. Full details concerning Pownall's work 
and the Evans Map will be found in Winsor's "Narrative and Critical 
History of America," V, pp. 83-85. 

II. Dr. Thomas Walker, "Journal of an Exploration Through Ken- 
tucky in the Spring of the Year 1750," with a preface by William Cabell 
Rives. Small quarto, 69 pages, Boston, Little, Brown & Company, 1888. 

This printed copy lacks the pages of the "Journal" from the sixth to 
the sixteenth of March, and from the eleventh to the nineteenth of April, 
1750, but they appear in the manuscript copy of Colonel Durrett's Col- 
lection, Louisville, Kentucky, and also in "Filson Club Publication," 
No. 13, Louisville, Ky., 1898. Walker's explorations were for the pur- 
pose of locating lands for the "Loyal Company," and his journal is, 
therefore, of a character similar to that of Christopher Gist. 

III. Filson's "Kentucke." The first attempt to preserve the early 
history of Kentucky in book form was made by John Filson. His work 
is entitled "The Discovery, Settlement, and Present State of Kentucke, 
and an Essay Toward the Topographical and Natural History of That 
Important Country." Octavo, 118 pages, Wilmington, Delaware. 
Printed by James Adams, 1784. It is, to the Kentucky historian, what 

547 



548 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

Captain John Smith's "True Relation" is to the historian of Virginia. 
It contains a certificate, signed by Daniel Boone, Levi Todd, and James 
Harrod, pronouncing it "an exceedingly good performance, containing 
as accurate a description of our country as we think can possibly be 
given." It was written, as the author declares, "solely to inform the 
world of the happy climate and plentiful soil of this favored region." 
The narrative is as accurate as was possible at that early day; but, in 
speaking of the first visitors to Kentucky, Filson and his pioneer friends 
Boone, Todd, and Harrod, are deceived, and claim the honor of dis- 
covery for James M'Bride who visited the district in 1754, whereas it 
had been often visited before that date, and the real discoverer was no 
less a personage than La Salle who, during his expedition of 1669, passed 
along the borders of Kentucky, from the Big Sandy to the Rapids of the 
Ohio. 

The most valuable parts of the work, however, are the map which 
accompanies the volume, and the appendix which contains " the auto- 
biography of Colonel Daniel Boone," as he himself dictated it to the 
author. The style of this " autobiography " is wholly that of Filson, but 
the facts presented are undoubtedly the real reminiscences of the great 
pioneer, and form a story of singular, almost unique, interest. 

Concerning the map there was formerly great uncertainty, as no 
existing copy of the book was known to contain a map, and dealers be- 
gan to declare that no such map had appeared. The question was defi- 
nitely settled, however, in 1884, when Colonel R. T. Durrett published a 
fac-simile of the map in his monograph upon the "Life and Writings of 
John Filson" ("Filson Club PubUcations," No. i). 

The first edition of Filson is now exceedingly rare, and commands a 
very high price. Copies may be seen in the Durrett Library at Louis- 
ville, Ky., and at the library of Harvard University. 

Reprints and translations are, however, numerous, and their circula- 
tion is largely responsible for the world-wide fame of the simple pioneer, 
Daniel Boone. They are: 

1. M. Parraud's French translation, octavo, 254 pages, Paris, France, 
1785. This edition is also rare. A well preserved copy may be seen 
in the Astor Library, New York City. 

2. Two German translations, one by Ludwig Heinrich Bronner, octavo, 
254 pages, Frankfort, 1785; the other by Chr. Weigel und Schneider, 
octavo, 124 pages, Leipzig, 1790. 

3. Three reprints, made in England in the years 1792, 1793, and 1797, 
in connection with editions of Gilbert Imlay's "Topographical De- 
scription of the Western Territory of North America." 



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF KENTUCKY HISTORY 549 

IV. "The Discovery, Purchase, and Settlement of the Country 
OF Kentucky in North America." By Alexander Fitzroy. Octavo, 
15 pages. Printed by H. Goldney, No. 15, Pater-Noster Row, London, 
1786. 

This book, which almost equals in age the more famous work of John 
Filson, is also exceedingly rare, but is of little value to the historian. 
Its author was probably a Kentucky land speculator, and the book was 
evidently compiled from Filson's "Kentucke." 

V. "Thoughts on Emigration, to Which Are Added Miscellaneous 
Observations Relating to the United States of North America and a 
Short Account of the State of Kentucky." By Harry Toulmin. Octavo, 
124 pages. London, 1792, with map. 

Of very little practical value to the Kentucky historian of the present 
day. 

VI. "A Topographicai- Description of the Western Territory of 
North America." By Gilbert Imlay. Octavo, 248 pages. Printed by 
J. Dibrett, London, 1792. 

Imlay was a captain in the American army during the Revolution, 
and later "Commissioner for laying out lands on the Back Settlements." 
This work made him familiar with the American frontier, its climate, its 
population, its Indian tribes, etc., all of which he here discusses in a 
series of letters to a friend in England. 

A second edition (octavo, 455 pages), containing also the text of Filson's 
"Kentucke," appeared from the same press in 1793. 

In the same year a third edition (2 vols., i2mo, 260 and 204 pages) 
was printed in New York by Samuel Campbell, which contained both 
the Filson History and "a delineation of the Laws, and Government of 
the State of Kentucky." 

A fourth edition (octavo, 626 pages), appeared in London in 1797 
from the press of J. Dibrett, and contains, besides Filson's "Kentucke," 
Hutchin's "Topographical Description of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Mary- 
land, and North Carolina," together with other valuable early papers. 

VII. "Acts Passed at the First Session of the General Assembly 
FOR THE Commonwealth of Kentucky," held at Lexington, Monday, 
June 4, 1792. Printed by John Bradford. Lexington, 1792. 

VIII. " The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 and 1799." Original texts 
(Durrett's MSS.) as issued by the Kentucky Legislature. These valu- 
able documents were reproduced, the first in fac-simile, in the "Southern 
Bivouac," B. F. Avery and Sons, March, April and May, 1886. The ar- 
ticle in which they there appeared was written by Col. R. T. Durrett. 



550 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

It proved conclusively that Thomas Jefferson was the real author of 
these famous Resolutions, and pointed out the changes which they 
underwent before passing the Kentucky Legislature. 

IX. "An Account of the Remarkable Occurrences in His Life and 
Travels." By Col. James Smith. Octavo, 88 pages. Printed by 
John Bradford. Lexington, 1799. Durrett Collection. 

X. "Laws of Kentucky." By Harry Toulmin. Frankfort, 1802. 

XL On May 15, 1884, Richard H. Collins, William Chenault, John 
Mason Brown, Basil W. Duke, George M. Davie, James S. Pirtle, 
Thomas W. Bullitt, Alexander P. Humphrey, Thomas Speed, and Reuben 
T. Durrett organized, in Louisville, Kentucky, the Filson Club, for the 
purpose of "collecting and preserving the History of Kentucky, and 
especially those perishing scraps of history and biography which have 
never been published." During the twenty-five years of its existence, 
this club has made many valuable additions to the written history of the 
State, and has somewhat supplied the lack, long felt by students of 
Kentucky history, of published collections of State documents. 

In each of the twenty-three publications which it has made (publica- 
tions upon special topics of State History and Biography), have appeared 
elaborate extracts from original sources in the possession of the club, and 
often full texts of important documents have been given in the ap- 
pendices. 

XII. In the Appendix of Mann Butler's "History of the Commonwealth 
of Kentucky" (1834) appear in full a number of important documents: 

1. "Journal" of Colonel Croghan (1765). 

2. Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768). 

3. Order of Virginia Council to General George Rogers Clark for 
500 pounds of gunpowder for defence of the Kentucky frontier, and 
other important documents relating to history of the State during 
the period of the Revolution. 

The second edition, 1836, contains a still more extended and in- 
teresting collection of documents. 

XIII. In the Appendix of Mr. William Hayden English's work, entitled 
"The Conquest of the Country Northwest of the River Ohio, 1778-83" 
(The Bowen-Merrill Co., Indianapolis, 1896, 2 vols., 1186 pages), appear 
full texts of the most important documents relating to the life of George 
Rogers Clark, including: 

I. Clark's "Memoir," his last account of his campaigns, probably 
written at the request of Thomas Jeflferson and James Madison. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF KENTUCKY HISTORY 551 

2. Clark's letter to his friend and patron, George Mason of Virginia, 
giving the details of his campaigns in the Northwest Territory. 

3. Two letters from Major John Bowman, one of Clark's chief officers, 
who served and perished in the Northwest Campaign. The first is 
written to George Brinker of Frederick County, Virginia, and is 
here published for the first time. The other was written to Colonel 
John Hite of Frederick County, Virginia. 

4. Major Bowman's "Journal," giving an account of the proceedings 
of George Rogers Clark from January 27th, to March 20th, 1779. 

5. "Diary of George Rogers Clark from December 25th, 1776, to 
November 22d, 1777." 

6. The author also gives, in the text of his narrative, a number of 
important documents (relating to this period), which are in the pos- 
session of the Indiana Historical Society, of which he was President 
at the time of the preparation of this work. 

XIV. "Political Transactions in and Concerning Kentucky, from 
the First Settlement Thereof Until it Became an Independent State in 
June, 1792." By William Littell, Esq. i2mo., 147 pages. Printed by 
William Hunter, Printer to the Commonwealth, Frankfort, Ky., 1806. 

This little volume is one of the most interesting and valuable of the 
earlier works upon Kentucky History, and is exceedingly rare, the only 
copy known to the author, being that in Colonel Durrett's Library at 
Louisville, Kentucky. Its scope is clearly indicated by the title page 
but, in addition to the narrative itself, its author has preserved, in "an 
appendix," a number of rare and valuable documents relating to the 
narrative itself, and throwing much light upon the conflict for inde- 
pendent Statehood. 

The last thirty or forty pages of the "narrative" are taken up with a 
refutation of the "pretended Spanish Conspiracy," and contain many 
sentences of burning sarcasm and fierce invective against Humphrey 
Marshall, and "the Caledonian, John Wood, or his man, Joseph M. 
Street," the editors of the "V/estern World," through the columns of 
which the accusations against Brown, Wilkinson, Sebastian, Innis, and 
Wallace were made. Littell is a strong debater and a forcible writer, 
but, like Marshall himself, he writes with a personal animus which 
often leads one to question the accuracy of his statements concerning his 
opponents. 

XV. "Memoirs of My Own Times." By General James Wilkinson. 
3 vols. Printed by Abraham Small, Philadelphia, 1816. 

These volumes, perhaps unintentionally, throw light upon the Spanish 



552 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

conspiracy questions, and upon Wilkinson's connection with Burr's 
mysterious project. They also preserve numerous documents of in- 
terest, especially in connection with the latter question. It has been 
justly remarked that General Wilkinson succeeded in writing a better 
life than he succeeded in living. 

XVI. "The Statutes at Large: Being a Collection of All the 
Laws of Virginia, 1619-1792." By William Waller Hening. 13 vols. 
Richmond, 1819. 

This remarkable publication is of primary importance to the historian 
of Kentucky, as only through it can the early laws for the government of 
Kentucky, and the conditions prevailing there during the long years 
of dependence upon Virginia be ascertained. It is of especial value in 
tracing the history of the struggle for independent Statehood, as well as 
for fixing dates which are often erroneously given in the somewhat 
illiterate journals of early days. In it appears, in ofl5cial form, the whole 
story of Kentucky under Virginia Government. 

XVII. "The Statute Law of Kentucky." By William Littell and 
other editors. 5 vols. Frankfort, 1809, 1810, 181 1, 1814, 1819. 

In addition to the Statute Law, these rare and valuable volumes, now 
almost unobtainable, preserve a vast body of documents, charters, or- 
dinances, royal proclamations, etc., many of which can now be found 
in no other place. The appendix to vol. II, for example, contains all 
the Acts of Parliament and of Virginia, of a general nature, which re- 
mained in force in Kentucky after her admission as an independent 
member of the Federal Union. The appendix to vol. Ill, likewise, con- 
tains all the acts of Virginia for the establishment and regulation of 
towns, academies, ferries, and inspectors in the District of Kentucky, 
and also the text of the act granting land to Richard Henderson and 
Company. A complete set of these volumes may be seen in the library 
of Colonel R. T. Durrett of Louisville, Kentucky. I know of no other 
complete set. 

XVIII. "Reports of Cases at Common Law and in Chancery Decided 
BY THE Court of Appeals of the Commonwealth of Kentucky." 
Published under the patronage of the State, by William Littell. 6 vols. 
Frankfort, 1823. Durrett Collection. 

XIX. "The Pioneer in the Kentucky Emigrant." By John Magill. 
Octavo, 84 pages. Printed by J. B. Marshall, Frankfort, 1832. 

A brief topographical and historical description of the State of Ken- 
tucky. 

XX. Franklin's Works, edited by Jared Sparks, and published by Hil- 



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF KENTUCKY HISTORY 553 

Hard Gray and Company, Boston, 1849. The set consists of fourteen 
volumes, and contains a vast collection of valuable documents relating 
to the early history of America. The larger part of the material relating 
to Kentucky will be found in vol. IV. 

XXI. The Durrett MSS. A collection of manuscript material, largely 
unpublished, relating chiefly to the early history of Kentucky. It is the 
chief source of the publications of the Filson Club, and has, by the gen- 
erosity of its owner, been of great service to numerous investigators in 
the field of pioneer history. The only collection at all comparable to 
it is the well-known Draper Collection. Among the more important 
documents of the Collection are: 

1. James McAfee's "Journal of an Exploration Through Kentucky 
in 1773." Quarto MSS., 41 pages. 

2. Robert McAfee's "Journal of an Expedition Through Kentucky 
in 1773." Quarto MSS., 18 pages. 

3. "The Life and Times of Robert B. McAfee," written by himself. 

4. "The History of the Rise and Progress of the First Settlement on 
Salt River and Establishment of the New Providence Church." By 
Robert B. McAfee. 

5. "The General and Natural History of Kentucky." By Robert B. 
McAfee. MSS., 63 pages. 

6. Colonel Richard Henderson's "Journal of an Expedition Through 
Kentucky and a Residence Therein in 1775." Quarto MSS., 
44 pages. This "Journal," in a slightly different form, is preserved 
among the Draper MSS. (Kentucky MSS., I.) 

7. George Rogers Clark to George Mason. A letter giving Clark's 
own story of his Campaign. MSS., no pages. It is dated "Louis- 
ville, Falls of Ohio, November 19, 1779." It was first published 
in 1869, by Robert Clarke and Company, of Cincinnati, as one of 
the "Ohio Valley Historical Series," with an introduction by the 
Honorable Henry Pirtle of Louisville, and has been since frequently 
republished. 

8. Clark's "Memoir," MSS., 306 pages. Written at Louisville in the 
year 1791. Three MS. copies of this important document are 
known to exist. One the property of the late W. H. English, Presi- 
dent of the Indiana Historical Society; one in the Draper Collection 
of the Wisconsin Historical Society, which, however, is incomplete, 
owing to the loss of a number of leaves; and the copy here described. 
It is an invaluable document for any one writing upon the IlHnois 
Campaign. A good reprint, made after a comparison of the three 



554 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

manuscripts, appears in English's "Conquest of the Country North- 
west of the River Ohio," I, pp. 457-561. 

9. WilHam Fleming's "Journal of a Tour Through Kentucky, and a 
residence there in 1779-80." Folio MSS., 47 pages. 

10. An unsigned journal of 1783. Folio MSS., 22 pages. 

11. Reverend James Smith's "Three Journals of Tours Through 
Kentucky and Residence There in 1785, 1795, and 1797." Folio 
MSS., 117 pages. 

12. General Butler's "Journal, 1785-86," being a description of a 
tour through Kentucky in company vi^ith James, Monroe. MSS., 

287 pages. 

13. "Autobiography and Diary of Daniel Trabue." Unpublished 
MS. One of the most perfect and elaborate of the many pioneer 
journals of the period. Its character will appear through the fre- 
quent citations and extracts which appear in Chapter II of the 
present volume. 

14. "Notes on Kentucky." By John Bradford. Quarto MSS., 
506 pages. The same may be found in the files of the "Kentucky 
Gazette" of which Bradford was the editor. They were written 
between the years 1826 and 1829, and present the early history of 
the State from the point of view of a remarkably clever and able 
newspaper man. 

15. "Journal of the Proceedings of the House of Delegates or Repre- 
sentatives of the Colony of Transylvania." The details of this 
Assembly are given in the text of the present volume. The manu- 
script has been reproduced in part in Collins, II, p. 501. 

16. "Kentucky's Historical and Biographical Sketches." MSS., 
2 vols. By William H. Perrin. 

17. "Papers and Autobiography of Isaac Shelby." ' 

18. "The History of Boyle and Mercer Counties." By Marie T. 
Davis. Quarto MSS., 185 pages. 

19. "The History of the Ohio Valley." By Mann Butler. MSS., 

288 pages. Published in the "Western Journal and Citizen," St. 
Louis. Vols. IX to XIV. 

XXII. The Draper Manuscripts, now the property of the Wisconsin 
Historical Society. The largest and one of the most important collec- 
tions of manuscripts west of the AUeghanies. It contains, among other 
things relating to Kentucky history, the papers of George Rogers Clark, 
and a vast mass of material relating to Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton, 
the Wars of the West, the pioneer days, etc. Copies of the most impor- 



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF KENTUCKY HISTORY 555 

tant of these Kentucky MSS. have been made under the direction and 
supervision of Colonel R. T. Durrett, and the late John Mason Brown, 
and are now preserved in the Durrett Collection at Louisville. 
XXIII. Family Archives. 

1. The Breckinridge MSS. A collection of thirty or forty thousand 
manuscripts, bequeathed to the Library of Congress, by the late 
Colonel W. C. P. Breckinridge of Lexington, Kentucky. This col- 
lection begins with the year 1752, and extends to the year 1900. 
There is a gap from 1799 to 1805, but, with this exception, almost 
every year of this long period is represented by letters and docu- 
ments, relating chiefly to the Breckinridge family, but relating also 
to the many public questions with which successive generations of 
this famous Kentucky family have been associated. 

The collection has not yet been catalogued, and is not yet open 
to the public. 

For the privilege of examining the collection, and of reproduc- 
ing one of the letters, the author is indebted to Mr. Desha Breck- 
inridge of Lexington, Kentucky, and to Dean Breckinridge of the 
University of Chicago. 

2. The Brown MSS. A collection of letters belonging to the heirs of 
the late John Mason Brown. Less extensive, and of less general in- 
terest than the Breckinridge MSS. 

For the privilege of examining this collection, the author is indebted 
to the Misses Brown of Lexington, Kentucky, daughters of the late 
John Mason Brown. 
B. The Secondary Sources are newspapers, and systematic accounts of 
single events, or of continued periods, written by men who obtained their 
information chiefly at second-hand, from the various available primary 
sources. These, for convenience, are divided into, 
I. Newspapers. 
II. General Histories of the State. 

III. Histories of Special Topics. 

IV. Miscellaneous. 

I. NEWSPAPERS 

One of the most interesting sources of Kentucky History is the extensive 
collection of local newspapers. I have spent many months in the exam- 
ination of these collections in various places, but mention here only those 
of special interest, although frequent reference to others will be made in 
the footnotes, which accompany the text. 

I. The "Kentucky Gazette"— spelled Kentucke in the first, and half 



556 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

of the second volumes — was established at Lexington in 1787, by 
the brothers John and Fielding Bradford, and the first issue was 
on August nth of that year. It has been published continuously 
ever since, and there is in the Public Library at Lexington, Ken- 
tucky, an almost complete collection of the numbers from the very 
first issue. This paper served as the official press of the conven- 
tions which secured the separation from Virginia, and was for years 
the only source of news open to the citizens of the western country. 
Its pages are a running commentary upon the history of Kentucky, 
as it was making, and give perhaps a clearer and truer idea than 
any other source, of the development of the State, besides preserv- 
ing numbers of important documents which would otherwise have 
been lost. 

2. The "Palladium," a literary and political weekly. It was issued 
at Frankfort from August 9th, 1798, to April 20th, 1809, by Hunter 
and Beaumont. An almost complete file, bound in four volumes, 
is among the treasures of the Durrett Collection. 

3. "The Lexington Reporter," a weekly. A very extensive collection 
of this paper is preserved in the Lexington Public Library, bound 
in seventeen volumes, and covering the entire period from 1808-18. 

4. "The Mirror," bound in one volume. Durrett Collection. The 
first and second numbers, September i6th and September 23d, 
1797, are missing, but the remaining numbers, running from Septem- 
ber 30th, 1797, to June i6th, 1798, show a firm, free and temperate 
attitude toward such questions as interested or disturbed the little 
communities of the West in those early days. 

5. "The American Republic," Frankfort, 1810-12. 

6. "The Argus of Western America," Frankfort, 1824-30. 

7. "The Commonwealth," 1838-39. 

8. "The Enquirer," Richmond, Kentucky, 1804-1806. 

9. "The Kentucky Reporter," Lexington: a remarkably full set pre- 
served in the Lexington Public Library, covering the period from 
January 6th, 1818, to April 4th, 1832. 

10. "The Western Monitor," a weekly pubHshed at Lexington. 
Bound in two volumes, 1818-19. Durrett Collection. 

11. "The Patriot" and "The Spirit of '76," Frankfort, 1826. Dur- 
rett Collection. These two rival papers were established by the 
contending parties in the Old and the New Court controversy, 
"The Patriot" representing the latter, and "The Spirit of '76" 
the former party. 

"The Spirit of '76" is preserved in two forms. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF KENTUCKY HISTORY 557 

a. The newspapers, comprised in some 69 numbers, the only copy 
now known being in the Durrett Collection. 

b. An octavo volume, printed by J. H. Holeman, containing 352 
pages, and also exceedingly rare. A copy in the Durrett Collec- 
tion. 

12. "The Maysville Eagle." Printed and published by Lewis Collins. 
The Durrett Collection contains four bound volumes of this ably 
edited newspaper, covering the period, June 9, 1824, to June 15, 
1858. 

II. GENERAL HISTORIES OF KENTUCKY 

I. Marshall. 

"The History of Kentucky, including an account of the Discovery, 
Settlement, Progressive Improvements, Political and Military Events, 
and Present State of the Country." By Humphrey Marshall. Octavo. 
Frankfort, Ky. 

This is the first of the systematic histories of Kentucky. The first 
edition was published by Henry Gore, Frankfort, Kentucky. Octavo, 
407 pages. Volume I, covering the history of the Kentucky region 
down to the year 1791, appeared in 1812. 

The second volume of this edition never appeared, but, in 1824, a 
second edition in two volumes, octavo, 474 and 524 pages, was pub- 
lished at Frankfort, Kentucky, by George S. Robinson. This second 
edition presents the history of Kentucky from Findlay's visit, in 1767, 
to the year 181 2, and is remarkable for the large number of important 
documents embodied in the text,^ as well as for the vigorous style in 
which the narrative is presented. 

The author entered the State about 1780, and spent some sixty years 
in active political service. He was a member of the Danville conven- 
tion of 1787, served many years in the State Legislature, and was 
United States Senator in 1 795-1801. His work is, therefore, mainly 
an account of events in which he had taken an active part, and his 
intense personal interest in these events, which are often described so 
minutely as to be wearisome, is shown by the bitter, and often ground- 
less, accusations which he makes against his political enemies. 

This work is the basis of most of the subsequent histories of the 

1 The first volume of this edition contains a reprint of "The Ancient Annals 
of Kentucky," by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, — a quaint little semi- 
scientific account of "the revolutions of nature and nations, in that central part 
of North America, now known under the name of Kentucky." It first appeared 
in Frankfort, Ky., in 1824, octavo, 39 pages. 



558 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

State, and, although open to criticism upon the ground of partiality 
and even injustice, in specific cases, it cannot be said to lack general 
accuracy and the historic sense. 

Marshall's temper was vindictive, and many a family in Kentucky 
still smarts under the lash which he laid upon some prominent and 
cherished ancestor, while others complain that some great-grand- 
father, who should bulk large in the political history of the State, has 
lost his rightful place, by virtue of the fact that Humphrey Marshall 
saw fit to pass over his name in contemptuous silence. 
2. Butler. 

"The History of Kentucky, ' from its Exploration and Settlement 
by the Whites, to the Close of the Northwestern Campaign, in 1813." 
By Mann Butler. 

This excellent work was first published by Wilcox, Dickerman & 
Company, Louisville, in 1834. i2mo., 396 pages. It contained 
these words at the close of the preface: "Several articles referred to as 
in the appendix have been unavoidably excluded by the size of the 
volume. They shall appear in another volume should the public call 
for its production." 

The work was well received and, in 1836, the second edition was 
published from the press of J. A. James & Company, Cincinnati, 
Ohio. Octavo, 551 pages. It contained a number of additions and 
corrections, besides the "articles" referred to in the first edition. 

The author had settled in Kentucky in 1806, and was an attentive 
observer of its history for over thirty years. A large part of his work is, 
therefore, concerned with events which occurred before his eyes. 
He enjoyed the friendship of most of the leading men of the State 
during this period, and in addition had access to a large body of pri- 
vate and public documents. Among the most important of these were 
the papers of George Rogers Clark, including his correspondence 
with Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, the McAfee papers, the 
Shelby, Innis and Floyd papers, and the Treaty of Fort Stanwix then 
in possession of the Honorable Richard M. Johnson. He gives the 
list of the earliest printed accounts of the history of the western coun- 
try, including the work of Lewis Hennepin, which records La Salle's 
descent of the Ohio, the "History of the Five Nations," by Cad- 
wallader Colden, Esq., the Journal of Major Washington's Mission 
up the Allegheny, the Journal of Colonel Croghan's descent of the 
Ohio, Boone's "Narrative," and Marshall's "History of Kentucky." 
Of the latter he writes: 

"This work has formed the substratum of the author's authority f or | 



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF KENTUCKY HISTORY 559 

the current of ordinary events: not without considerable, and as it is 
believed, important additions." 

Butler however, shows a much better appreciation of the relative 
importance of the events which he is describing, than is shown by 
Marshall, and his work is on the whole the more satisfactory of the 
two. 
;. Collins. 

"Historical Sketches of Kentucky, Embracing Its History, An- 
tiquities and Natural Curiosities, Geographical, Statistical and Geo- 
logical Descriptions; with Anecdotes of Pioneer Life and More than 
One Hundred Biographical Sketches of Distinguished Pioneers, 
Soldiers, Statesmen, Jurists, Lawyers, Divines, etc." By Lewis Col- 
Hns. Published by Lewis Collins, Maysville, Kentucky; and J. A. 
& W. P. James, Cincinnati, 1847. Octavo, 560 pages. 

This is by far the most elaborate and ambitious work yet noticed. 
It is the "Gazetteer of Kentucky History." It was the first illustrated 
History of Kentucky, and is a petfect mine of historic lore, but only 
this, as it is in no way a continuous narrative. The material was col- 
lected mainly by H. P. Peers of Maysville, and was at first intended 
as "simply a Small Gazetteer of the State:" but, upon the death of 
Mr. Peers, his unfinished and partially arranged work came into the 
possession of Collins, who decided to re-arrange and publish it, with 
the sole design, as he says, "to preserve, in a durable form, those rich 
fragments of local and personal history, many of which exist at present 
only in the ephemeral form of oral tradition, or are treasured up 
among the recollections of the aged actors in the stirring scenes, the 
memory of which is thus perpetuated." 

The first eighty pages, in addition to "A Chronological Table of 
Important Events in the History of Kentucky," contain an excellent 
"Outline History of Kentucky" up to 1844, written by John A. 
McClung of Washington. Then comes, " A Sketch of the Court of 
Appeals"; next, historical sketches of the Baptist, the Christian, the 
Cumberland Presbyterian, the Episcopal, the Methodist Episcopal, 
the Presbyterian, and the Roman Catholic Churches in Kentucky; 
then a chapter of "Miscellaneous Statistics"; then one on the Geo- 
logical Formation of the State, and an account of "Early Manners 
and Customs." The rest of the book is given up to the history of each 
county in the State, with an appendix upon "Science and Literature 
in Kentucky." It is a compilation of the highest value, and contains 
practically all the material concerning the history of the State which 
was then available. 



560 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

Second Edition, 1874. 

Richard H. Collins, the eldest son of the author, prepared a greatly 
enlarged edition of his father's work, which was published at Cov- 
ington in 1874. Collins & Company, 2 vols. Octavo, 707 and 804 
pages. 

This edition contains much material not included in the original 
volume. 

Third Edition, 1877. 

Another edition, i vol., large octavo, 912 pages, was printed by the 
author at Louisville, Kentucky, in 1877. 

Fourth Edition, 1882. 

In 1882 a fourth edition in 2 vols., 683 and 804 pages, was pub- 
lished at Covington, by Collins & Company. In this final edition, 
which is provided with a very complete index, there appears first a list 
of "Revolutionary Soldiers in Kentucky." Then follows a "Table of 
Important Events in the History of Kentucky," bearing the title 
"Annals of Kentucky" and reciting, in the manner of a daily journal, 
the more important, and sometimes also the less important, events in 
the history of the district, and of the State, between 1539 and 1874. 
The 235 pages which are devoted to these annals are invaluable to 
the historian of Kentucky, as they furnish an outline such as could 
not be prepared without years of research. Then follows McClung's 
"Outline History," also extended by a sketch of the important events 
from 1844 to the end of the Civil War, written by General George B. 
Hodge of Newport, Kentucky. 

There follows about fifty pages of miscellaneous statistics, most of 
which are of great value. Then comes a series of chapters on the 
history of the various religious denominations in Kentucky — Baptist, 
Christian, Cumberland Presbyterian, Episcopal, Methodist Episcopal, 
Presbyterian and Roman Catholic, all extended so as to cover the out- 
line of the topics to the date of the publication. 

Then follow a series of short chapters upon the following topics: 
"The Court of Appeals," "Public Education," "First Things in 
Kentucky," "Free-Masonry," "Odd-fellowship," "Internal Improve- 
ments," "Kentucky Poets and Poetry" (a series of brief biographical 
sketches with selections from the works of the poets), and a similar 
chapter upon the "Artists of Kentucky." 

A table of distances and a list of post oflSces in Kentucky are then 
inserted and finally, a chapter upon the "Historians of Kentucky" 
which gives a brief bibliography of Kentucky history, embracing 
Filson, Littell, Humphrey Marshall, Mann Butler, Lewis Collins, 



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF KENTUCKY HISTORY 561 

William B. Allen and himself, with "other works upon the history 
of Kentucky," in which subsidiary list he rightly places Toulmin, 
Imlay, McAfee, Metcalfe, McClung, Morehead, J. J. Hall, and 
John Bradford. The first volume closes with a very exhaustive 
index. 

Volume II deals exclusively with the "Histories of Counties of the 
Commonwealth," and of course repeats much that appears also in 
the first volume. It also contains a very complete index. 

On the whole these two volumes constitute a Gazetteer of Ken- 
tucky History which is surpassed by that of no other State, and 
contain about all the raw material necessary for the compilation 
of a very minute history of Kentucky, through the Civil War Pe- 
riod. 

4. Arthur and Carpenter. 

"The History of Kentucky." By T. S. Arthur and W. H. Carpen- 
ter. i2mo., 316 pages. Lippincott, Grambo & Company, Philadel- 
phia, 1852. 

This little volume belongs to a series known as the "Cabinet His- 
tories of the States." It is a bit of "hack work," having little interest 
or value. 

5. Allen. 

"A History of Kentucky, Embracing Gleanings, Reminiscences, 
Antiquities, Natural Curiosities, Statistics, and Biographical Sketches." 
By William B. Allen. Octavo, 449 pages. Bradley & Gilbert, Louis- 
ville, Kentucky, 1872. 

It is a compilation of no particular merit or interest. 

6. Shaler. , 

"Kentucky," in the American Commonwealth Series. By N. S. 
Shaler. Small octavo, 433 pages. Houghton, Mifflin & Company, 
Boston, 1885. 

This is the most readable and reliable narrative history of Kentucky: 
but it is scarcely more than a sketch, covering the entire field from the 
earliest settlements to the date of publication. The author frankly 
admits that he has made no attempt to investigate his subject from the 
sources, and draws most of his material directly from Collins, Marshall 
and Butler. 

Of the Civil War period, however, he writes as an eye witness, and 
his narrative represents the point of view of a distinct Unionist. Some 
of his generalizations concerning the effect of geological formations 
upon the institution of slavery are particularly interesting, as the writer 
was a professional geologist. 

Kentucky — 36 



562 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

7. Smith. 

"The History of Kentucky." By Z. F. Smith. Large octavo, illus- 
trated, 825 pages. Louisville Courier-Journal Job Printing Company, 
1886. 

This work, which is very elaborate, and which covers the history 
of the State up to 1886, was published by subscription. It shows un- 
mistakable signs of hasty preparation, and an insufficient study of 
the subject, the material being presented in a very crude and un- 
digested form. It is, however, vastly superior to the Battle-Perrin- 
Knifl&n compilation, the only work with which it can be fairly com- 
pared. 

A second edition, "Centennial," 1892, 916 pages. 

A third edition, 1895, 848 pages. 

A School Edition, 1889. Small octavo, 240 pages. 

That the author is capable of historical work of a much higher 
order, is shown by his excellent monograph of the Battle of New 
Orleans, to be discussed later, under the head of Filson Club Publi- 
cations. 

8. Battle. 

"Kentucky, a History of the State." By J. H. Battle, W. H. Perrin, 
and G. C. Kniffin. Quarto, illustrated, 868 pages. F. A. Battey 
& Company, Louisville and Chicago, 1885. 

A rather forbidding compilation, intended as a popular history of 
the State. It is of little interest except for the period just before the 
Civil War. 

It has gone through five editions, the fifth having appeared in 1887. 

9. Histories oj Kentucky, designed for young readers. 

a. "School History of Kentucky." By Z. F. Smith. Prepared 

from the author's larger work, for use in Kentucky schools. 

Small octavo, 240 pages. The Courier- Journal Job Printing 

Company, Louisville, 1889. 
h. "Kentucky." By Emma Conelly. Story of the States Series, 

Boston, 1891. 

c. "Kentucky." By "Elizabeth Shelby Kinkead. Octavo, 288 pages. 
American Book Company, New York, Cincinnati, Boston, 1896. 
Well written and suitable as a text-book for those wishing a brief 
and interesting account of the general facts of Kentucky history. 
The appendix contains the new Constitution of the State. 

d. "A Young People's History of Kentucky for Schools and Gen- 
eral Reading." By Ed. Porter Thompson. Octavo, 344 pages. 
A. R. Fleming Publishing Company, St. Louis, 1897. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF KENTUCKY HISTORY 563 

III. SPECIAL TOPICS IN KENTUCKY HISTORY 

It is obviously impossible to give, within a reasonable compass, any- 
thing like an exhaustive list of the publications touching upon special 
topics of Kentucky history, but the following is a list of the most valuable 
of this character, arranged, for convenience of reference, under five heads: 

A. The Filson Club Publications. 

B. Biographical and Genealogical. 

C. Ecclesiastical and Religions. 

D. County and Town Histories. 

E. Military Affairs. 

A. The publications of the Filson Club are as follows: 

I. "The Life and Writings of John Filson, the first historian of Ken- 
tucky." By Reuben T. Durrctt, LL. D., 132 pages, 1884. 

"The Wilderness Road." By Captain Thomas Speed, 85 pages, 1886. 

"The Pioneer Press of Kentucky." By William Henry Perrin, 
154 pages, 1888. 

"The Life and Times of Judge Caleb Wallace." By William Whit- 
sitt, D.D., LL. D., 154 pages, 1888. 

"An Historical Sketch of St. Paul's Church, Louisville, Kentucky." 
By Reuben T. Durrctt, LL. D., 75 pages, 1889. 

"The Political Beginnings of Kentucky." By Colonel John Mason 
Brown, 263 pages, 1889. 

"The Centenary of Kentucky." By Reuben T. Durrett, LL. D., 
200 pages, 1892. 

"The Centenary of Louisville." By Reuben T. Durrett, LL. D., 
200 pages, 1893. 

"The Political Club." By Captain Thomas Speed, 180 pages, 1894. 
10. "The Life and Writings of Constantine Samuel Ralinesque." By 
Richard Ellsworth Call, M. A., M. Sc, M. D., 239 pages, 1895. 

II. "The History of Transylvania University, the First Seat of Higher 
Education West of the Alleghany Mountains." By Robert Peter, 
M. D., and Miss Johanna Peter, 202 pages, 1896. 

12. "The Siege of Bryant's Station, August the 15th, 1782, and the 
Memorial Proceedings on the i8th of August, 1896, in Honor of its 
Heroic Mothers and Daughters." Edited by Reuben T. Durrett, 
LL. D., 277 pages, 1897. 

13. "The First Explorations of Kentucky." The Journals of Doctor 
Thomas Walker, 1750, and of Colonel Christopher Gist, 1751. Edited 
by Colonel J. Stoddard Johnston, 256 pages, 1898. 

14. "The Clay Family." Part First. "The Mother of Henry Clay." 



564 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

By Zachary F. Smith. Part Second: "The Genealogy of the Clays." 
By Mrs. Mary Rogers Clay, 276 pages, 1899. 

15. "'The Battle of Tippecanoe." Part First: "The Battle and the 
Battle-ground." Part Second; "Comment of the Press." Part 
Three: "Roll of the Army Commanded by General Harrison." By 
Captain Alfred Pirtle, 158 pages, 1900. 

16. "Boonesborough, a Pioneer Town of Kentucky; Its Origin, Progress, 
Decline and Final Extinction." By George W. Ranck, 286 pages, 
1901. 

17. "The Old Masters of the Blue Grass." By General Samuel W. 
Price, 181 pages, 1902. 

18. "The Battle of the Thames." By Colonel Bennett H. Young, 
288 pages, 1903. 

19. "The Battle of New Orleans." By Zachary F. Smith, 224 pages, 
1904. 

20. "The History of the Medical Department of Transylvania Uni- 
versity." By Doctor Robert Peter, deceased. Prepared for publica- 
tion by his daughter. Miss Johanna Peter, 205 pages, 1905. 

21. "Lopez's Expeditions to Cuba." By A. C. Quisenberry, 172 pages. 

22. "The Quest of a Lost Race." By Thomas E. Pickett, M.D., LL. D., 
229 pages, 1907. 

23. "Traditions of the Earliest Visits of Foreigners to North America." 
By Reuben T. Durrett, 176 pages, 1908. 

The volumes of this notable series are by no means of uniform merit: 
but all are based upon a thorough and conscientious study of the sources, 
both primary and secondary, and all are of value to the student of Ken- 
tucky history. 

The most valuable and interesting number is the sixth, the "Political 
Beginnings of Kentucky," by the late John Mason Brown, a writer of un- 
usual keenness of vision. It was written in the interest of an ancestor, 
John Brown, Kentucky's first representative in the United States Sen- 
ate, whose name has long been connected with the Spanish intrigues 
of early days; but it presents an admirable sketch of the formation of the 
Commonwealth, and its long conflict for independent statehood, and rests 
upon careful and scholarly research. I freely acknowledge my large in- 
debtedness to it in the treatment of these topics. 

Of scarcely less value, and of more general interest, are numbers 
eighteen and nineteen. Colonel Young's "Battle of the Thames," the 
first of these, while representing less minute investigation than the 
volume just described, gives a very detailed and spirited account of that 
important engagement, in which Kentucky troops showed to the best 



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF KENTUCKY HISTORY 565 

advantage. The second, Smith's "Battle of New Orleans," is an ex- 
cellent and scholarly presentation of the details of one of our greatest 
national engagements. It traces clearly the part played by the Ken- 
tucky troops, and thoroughly refutes the charge of inglorious flight made 
against them in General Jackson's official report. To each of these 
volumes I am indebted for much of the material presented in correspond- 
ing chapters of the present work. 

I wish also to acknowledge a similar indebtedness to the seventh and 
eighth volumes of the series, which embody the mature opinions of 
Colonel Reuben T. Durrett, President of the Filson Club, and real 
father of the organization. 

B. Biographical and Genealogical 
a. Boone. 

1. "Mountain Muse, or Adventures of Daniel Boone." By Daniel 
Bryan. Harrisonburg, 1813. 

2. "Life and Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boone, the first White 
Settler of the State of Kentucky, comprising an account of his first 
excursion to Kentucky in 1769, then a wild wilderness, inhabited 
by no other human beings but savages; his removal here with his 
family in 1773, and of his various encounters with the Indians, 
from the year 1769 to 1782. Written by Himself. To which is 
added a narration of the most important incidents of his life from 
the latter period, until the period of his death, June 27, 1821, at the 
advanced age of ninety years; comprising an account of his many 
hair-breadth escapes, while in pursuit of the wild beasts of the 
forest, his favorite amusement until the day of his death." Printed 
by H. Trumbull. Providence, 1824. 

Annexed is a Eulogy of Colonel Boone, and his choice of life, by 
Lord Byron. 

The only copy of this work, of which I have any knowledge, was 
recently upon exhibition in the Louisiana Collection of the Con- 
gressional Library. It seems probable that it is the work of John 
Filson. 

3. "Biographical Memoir of Daniel Boone." By Timothy Fhnt. 
Octavo, 252 pages. Published by George Conclin, Cincinnati, 1844. 

4. "Life of Daniel Boone." By John M. Peck. (In Spark's "Ameri- 
can Biography.") Boston, 1845. 

5. "Daniel Boone and the Hunters of Kentucky." By W. H. Bogart. 
464 pages. Miller, Orton, and Mulligan, New York and Auburn, 
1856. 



566 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

6. "Life of Daniel Boone." By Cecil B. Hartley. Octavo, 361 pages. 
Porter & Coates, Philadelphia, 1865. 

Romantic and not always reliable. 

7. "Daniel Boone." By George Canning Hill. Octavo, 262 pages. 
J. B. Lippincott & Company, Philadelphia, 1865. 

8. "Life of Daniel Boone." By John S. C. Abbott. 331 pages. 
Dodd, Mead & Company, New York, 1872. 

Romantic and not always reliable. 

9. "Life and Times of Colonel Daniel Boone." By Edward S. Ellis. 
Octavo, 269 pages. Porter & Coates, Philadelphia. 

10. "Facts and Incidents Not Heretofore Published About Daniel 
Boone." By John P. Hale. 18 pages. Lewis Baker & Company, 
Charleston, West Virginia. (Not dated.) 

11. "Daniel Boone: Contribution Toward a Bibliography of Writings 
Concerning Daniel Boone." By William Harvey Miner. 32 pages. 
Published by the Dobdin Club, New York, 1901. 

12. "Daniel Boone." By Reuben Gold Thwaites. i2mo., 257 pages. 
D. Appleton & Company, New York, 1902. 

13. "Daniel Boone and the Wilderness Road." By H. Addington 
Bruce. Illustrated. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1908. 

14. "Daniel Boone: Backwoodsman." By C. H. Forbes. J. B. 
Lippincott & Company, 1908. 

b. Burr. 

1. "The Trial of Colonel Aaron Burr on an Indictment for Treason, 
Before the Circuit Court of the United States, Held in Richmond 
(Virginia), May Term, 1807." Including arguments and decisions 
taken in shorthand by T. Carpenter. Three vols. Washington 
City, Westcott & Company, 1807. 

2. "Reports of the Trials of Colonel Aaron Burr, Late Vice-President 
of the United States, for Treason and for a Misdemeanor, in Pre- 
paring the Means of a Military Expedition Against Mexico, a 
Territory of the King of Spain, with Whom the United States Were 
at Peace." Taken in shorthand by David Robertson. Two 
vols. Hopkins & Earle, Fry & Kammerer, Printers, Philadelphia, 
1808. 

3. "Two Principal Arguments of William Wirt, Esquire, on the Trial 
of Aaron Burr for High Treason, and on the Motion to Commit 
Aaron Burr and Others for Trial in Kentucky." From the press 
of Samuel Pleasants, Jr., Richmond, 1808. 

4. "The Life of Aaron Burr." By Samuel L. EJnapp. New York, 
Wiley & Sons, No. 161 Broadway, 1835. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF KENTUCKY HISTORY 567 

5. "Memoirs of Aaron Burr with Miscellaneous Selections from his 
Correspondence." By Mathew L. Davis. Two vols. Harper 
& Brothers, No. 82 Cliff Street, New York, 1836. 

6. "Life and Times of Aaron Burr." By James Parton. Two vols. 
New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, London, 1864. 

7. "The Aaron Burr Conspiracy." By W. F. MacCaleb. Dodd, 
Mead & Company, 1903. 

"The Life of Herman Blennerhassett." By WiUiam H. Safford. 
Chillicothe, 1850. 
Henry Clay. 

1. "Biography of Henry Clay." By George D. Prentice. 304 
pages. Hartford, 183 1. Extends only to end of John Quincy 
Adam.s' Administration. 

2. "Life and Public Services of Henry Clay." By Epes Sargent. 
New York, 1842. 

New and enlarged edition, New York, 1848. The last edition 
brings the Memoir down to the spring of 1848. 

3. "Life and Speeches of Henry Clay." Compiled and edited by 
Daniel Mallory. Two vols. New York, 1843. 

4. "Life and Times of Henry Clay." By Calvin Colton. Two vols. 
New York, Second Edition, 1846. 

The author enjoyed free access to Mr. Clay's papers, and 
intimacy with Mr. Clay himself. 

5. "Private Correspondence of Henry Clay." Edited by Calvin 
Colton. One edition bears the imprint of H. W. Derby, Cincin- 
nati, 1856; and another, that of Frederick Parker, Boston, 1856. 

6. "The Last Seven Years of the Life of Henry Clay." By Calvin 
Colton. New York, 1856. 

7. "Works of Henry Clay." Edited by Calvin Colton. 6 vols. 
New York, 1855. 

The first three volumes contain the history of his life, the 
fourth contains his letters, and the other two his speeches. New 
Edition, New York, 1863. 

8. "Life and Speeches of Henry Clay." Anon. 2 vols. Greeley 

& McElrath, New York, 1843. 

The "Memoir," extending over 198 pages of vol. I, sketches 
Clay's career down to the opening of 1842. 

9. "Monument to the Memory of Henry Clay." By A. H. Carrier. 
Published by subscription, by Duane Ruhson, Philadelphia, and 
W. A. Clarke, Cincinnati. One vol., 516 pages. 

10. "Life of Henry Clay." In "Young American's Library." 



568 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

Published by Lee & Shepard, Boston, and Lee, Shepard & 
Dillingham, New York, 1875. One vol., 240 pages. 

11. "Speeches of the Honorable Henry Clay, in the Congress of 
the United States." By Richard Chambers. Published by 
Shepard & Stearns, Cincinnati, 1842. One vol., 504 pages. 

12. "Letters of the United Provinces of South America, Addressed 
to the Honorable Henry Clay, Speaker of the House of Repre- 
sentatives of the United States." By Don Vicente Pazos. Trans- 
lated from the Spanish, by Piatt H. Crosby. Printed by J. Sey- 
mour, New York, and J. Miller, London, 1819. One vol., 257 
pages. 

13. "Henry Clay." American Statesmen Series. By Carl Schurz. 
Two vols. Boston, 1887. 

The best discussion of Clay's relationship to the political 
history of his generation. 

14. "Life and Times of Henry Clay." By Samuel Mosheim 
Schmucker. One vol., 432 pages. Published by G. G. Evans, 
439 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, i860. 

15. "Works of Henry Clay," comprising the Life, Correspondence 
and Speeches. Edited by Calvin Colton, with an Introduction 
by Thomas B. Reed, Speaker of the House of Representatives, 
and a history of the Tariff Legislation from 18 12 to 1896, by 
William McKinley, President of the United States. 

This is the most recent and most attractive edition of Mr. 

Clay's Works. It is complete in 7 vols., and was published at 

New York, Henry Clay Pubhshing Company, 1897. 

e. "Autobiography of Amos Kendall." Edited by his son-in-law, 

William Stickney. 700 pages. Boston, Lee & Shepard. New York, 

Lee, Shepard & Dillingham, 1872. 

This volume, of especial interest to all students of the Jacksonian 
Epoch, contains much valuable material bearing specifically on Ken- 
tucky. 
/. "The Life and Services of Matthew Lyon." By Plinny H. White. 

Octavo, 26 pages. Burlington, 1858. 
g. "Life of John J. Crittenden." By Mrs. Chapman Coleman. Two 

vols. Philadelphia, 1871. 
h. "Biographical Sketches of General Nathaniel Massie, General Dun- 
can McArthur, Captain William Wells, and Simon Kenton." By 
John McDonald. Octavo, 267 pages. E. Morgan & Son, Cincin- 
nati, 1828. 
i. "The Biographical Encyclopedia of Kentucky." Quarto, 792 pages, 



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF KENTUCKY HISTORY 569 

illustrated. J. M. Armstrong & Company, Cincinnati, Ohio, 
1878. 

/. "Biographical Cyclopaedia of the Commonwealth of Kentucky." 
Quarto, 631 pages. John M. Gresham Company, Chicago and Phila- 
delphia, 1896. 

k. "George Robertson's Scrap-book." A. W. Elder, Printer and Pub- 
lisher, Lexington, 1855. 

From the point of view of political history, this is perhaps the most 
valuable of the purely personal collections which have come down 
to us from the early days of Kentucky. It is, in the main, a collection 
of speeches, but it contains a large and most interesting collection of 
material relating to the leading public questions of the day. It is 
almost invaluable for the study of the conflict between the Old and 
the New Court parties. 

/. "Writings and Speeches of Thomas F. Marshall." By W. L. Barre. 
Cincinnati, 1858. 

m. "Pioneer Life in Kentucky." A series of reminiscential letters from 
Daniel Drake, M.D., of Cincinnati, to his children. Edited, with 
Notes and a Biographical Sketch, by his son, Charles D. Drake. 
Octavo, 263 pages. Robert Clarke & Company, Cincinnati, 1870. 

n. "The Taylor Family in Kentucky." By Richard H. Collins. "The 
Age." Louisville, May 3, 1879. 

0. "The Life of Cassius Marcellus Clay. Memoirs, Writings, and 
Speeches, Showing His Conduct in the Overthrow of American 
Slavery, the Salvation of the Union, and the Restoration of the Au- 
tonomy of the States. Written and compiled by himself." J. Fletcher 
Brennan & Company, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1886. Sold by subscrip- 
tion only. 

Only the first volume of this extraordinary book appeared; but it is 
of thriUing interest, and of unique value for the study of the Anti- 
Slavery Movement of the West. 

p. "Ben Hardin, His Times and Contemporaries," with selections 
from his speeches. By L. P. Little. Louisville, 1887. 

q. "Historic Families of Kentucky." By Thomas Marshall Green. 
Octavo, 304 pages. Robert Clarke & Company, Cincinnati, 



C. Ecclesiastical and Religious. 

I. "The Kentucky Revival, or a Short History of the Late Extraordinary 
Outpouring of the Spirit of God." By Richard McNemar. Octavo, 
129 pages. John W. Brown, Cincinnati, 1808. 



570 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

2. "History of the Cumberland Presbyterians." By Reverend Thomas 
Cleland. Lexington, 1823. 

3. "An OutUne of the History of the Church in the State of Kentucky, 
During a Period of Forty Years, Containing the Memoirs of Rev- 
erend David Rice, and Sketches of the Origin and Present State of 
Particular Churches, and of the Lives and Labours of a Number of 
Men Who Were Eminent and Useful in Their Day." Octavo, 420 
pages. Collected and arranged by Robert H. Bishop, Professor of 
History in Transylvania University, Lexington. Printed and pub- 
lished by Thomas T. Skillman, 1824. 

4. "A History of Ten Baptist Churches." By John Taylor. Octavo, 
300 pages. Printed by J. H. Holeman, Frankfort, Kentucky, 1826. 

5. "History of Clear Creek Church, and Campbellism Exposed." By 
John Taylor. Octavo, 60 pages. A. G. Hodges, Frankfort, Ken- 
tucky, 1830. 

6. "Sketches of the Early Catholic Missions in Kentucky; from Their 
Commencement in 1787 to the Jubilee of 1826-27." By M. J. Spald- 
ing. Octavo, 308 pages. Louisville and Baltimore, 1844. 

7. "History of the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky." By Robert David- 
son. Octavo, 371 pages. New York, Pittsburg and Lexington, 1847. 

8. "History of Kentucky Baptists." A Series of Articles in "Christian 
Repository," 1856-58. By S. H. Ford. 

9. "Historical Sketches of Christ Church." By James Craik. Octavo, 
137 pages. John P. Morton & Company, Louisville, 1862. 

ID. "The History of Methodism in Kentucky." By Reverend A. H. Red- 
ford. 3 vols., octavo, 479, 554 and 512 pages. Southern Methodist 
Publishing Company, Nashville, Tennessee, 1868. 

11. "Western Cavaliers, Embracing the History of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church in Kentucky." By A. H. Redford. Octavo, 552 pages. 
Southern Methodist Publishing Company, Nashville, Tennessee, 1876. 

12. "The Centenary of Catholicity in Kentucky." By Ben. J. Webb. 
Octavo, 594 pages. Charles A. Rogers, Louisville, 1884. 

13. "A History of Kentucky Baptists." By H. H. Spencer. 2 vols., 
octavo, 767 and 671 pages. J. R. Raumes, Cincinnati, 1885. 

14. Memorial volume, containing the papers and addresses that were 
delivered at the jubilee of the General Association of Baptists in Ken- 
tucky. Octavo, 150 pages. John P. Morton & Company, Louis- 
ville, 1888. 

15. "The Presbyterian Church in Louisville." By Reverend Edward L. 
Warren. Quarto, 36 pages. American Biographical Publishing Com- 
pany, Chicago and New York, 1896. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF KENTUCKY HISTORY 571 

16. Addresses Delivered at the Jubilee of the Louisville Conference of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Held at Hopkinsville, Ken- 
tucky, September 24-28, 1896. Published by request of the Confer- 
ence, and for the benefit of the Preachers' Aid Society. Edited by 
R. W. Browder, Nashville, Tennessee. Publishing House of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Barbcc & Smith, Agents, 1897. 

D. County and Town Histories. 

1. "The History of Grant County, State of Kentucky." By Robert E. 
Elliston. Octavo, 37 pages. Published by E. H. Eyer. Williams- 
town. No date. 

2. "Sketches of Louisville and Its Environs." By H. McMurtric. 
Octavo, 255 pages. Shadrach Penn, Louisville, Kentucky, 1819. 

3. The Louisville Directory for the year 1832, to which arc annexed lists 
of the Municipal, County, and State Officers; with a list of Various 
Societies and their Officers. Also an Advertisement. Published by 
Richard W. Otis, Louisville, 1832. 

4. Sketch of Louisville in the Directory of 1832. By Mann Butler. 

5. An address in commemoration of the first settlement in Kentucky, 
delivered at Boonesbo rough. May 25th, 1840. By Governor James T. 
Morehead. Octavo, 181 pages. A. G. Hodges, Frankfort, Kentucky, 
1840. 

6. "The History of Louisville from Its Earliest Settlement Till the Year 
1852." By Ben. Casscday. Octavo, 255 pages. Louisville, Kentucky, 
1852. 

7. " Louisville, Her Commercial, Manufacturing and Social Advantages." 
By Richard Deering. Octavo, 99 pages. Hanna & Company, 
Louisville, 1859. 

8. "History of Campbell County." By Mary K. Jones. Newport, 186 1. 

9. "History of Lexington, Kentucky." By George W. Ranck. Octavo, 
428 pages. Robert Clarke & Company, Cincinnati, 1872. 

10. "Louisville Past and Present." By M. Joblin & Company. 
Large octavo, 357 pages. John P. Morton & Company, Louisville, 

1875- 

11. "Early History of Jessamine County, Kentucky." By Samuel M. 
Duncan. Nicholasville, Kentucky, 1876. 

12. "A Sketch of Paris, Bourbon County, Kentucky." By C. R. Keller. 
Octavo, 46 pages. C. R. Keller, Paris, Kentucky, 1876. 

13. "The History of Russcllville, Logan County, Kentucky." By Alex- 
ander C. Finley. The Herald Enterprise Company, 1878, 1879, 1890. 

14. "Historical Address at the Centennial Celebration of the Settlement 



572 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

of Lexington, Kentucky." By George W. Ranck. Octavo, ii pages. 
Transylvania Printing Company, Lexington, Kentucky, 1879. 

15. "First Settlement at Lexington, Kentucky." By Richard H. Col- 
lins. "The Age," Louisville, April 19th, 1879. 

16. "Historical Sketch of Montgomery County, Kentucky." By Richard 
Reed. Octavo, 69 pages. Mount Sterling Democrat Job Room, 1882. 

/- 17. "History of Fayette County, Kentucky." By Wm. H. Perrin. 
Quarto, 905 pages. O. S. Baskin & Company, Chicago, 1882. 

18. "History of the Ohio Falls Cities and Their Counties." By Henry A. 
Ford and Kate Ford. 2 vols., large octavo, 611 and 572 pages. Wil- 
liams & Company, Cleveland, 1882. 

19. "History of Bourbon, Scott, Harrison and Nicholas Counties, Ken- 
tucky." By William Henry Perrin. Quarto, 815 pages. O. L. Baskin 
& Company, Chicago, 1882. 

20. "Address Delivered at the Centennial Celebration of the Settlement 
of Breckinridge County, Kentucky." By W. C. P. Breckinridge. 
Octavo, 40 pages. Frankfort Yeoman Print, 1882. 

21. "Oration at the Centennial of the Battle of the Blue Licks." By 
John Mason Brown. Frankfort, 1882. 

22. "The Early History of Madison County." By William Chenault. 
Durrett MSS. 

23. "Siege of Bryan's Station." By Richard H. Collins. Louisville 
"Courier- Journal," August 20th, 1882. 

24. "The Battle of the Blue Licks." By R. T. Durrett, Louisville 
"Commercial," August 19th, 1882. 

25. "Memoirs of Old Maysville, Kentucky." "O. B.'s" Reminiscences. 
Octavo, 75 pages. New Republican Print, Maysville, Kentucky, 
1883. 

26. "History of Daviess County, Kentucky." Octavo, Chicago, 1883. 

27. "County of Christian, Kentucky. Historical and Biographical." 
By William Henry Perrin. Large octavo, 656 pages. F. A. Battey 
Publishing Company, Chicago and Louisville, 1884. 

28. "Counties of Christian and Trigg, Kentucky. Historical and 
Biographical." By William Henry Perrin. Large octavo, 319 pages. 
F. A. Battey Publishing Company, Chicago and Louisville, 1884. 

29. "Counties of Todd and Christian, Kentucky. Historical and Bio- 
graphical." By J. A. Battle and William H. Perrin. Large octavo, 
327 pages. F. A. Battey and Company, Chicago and Louisville, 
1884. 

30. "History of Union County, Kentucky." Anon. Octavo, 896 pages. 
Courier Company, Printers, Evansville, Indiana, 1886. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF KENTUCKY HISTORY 573 

31. "The City of Louisville and a Glimpse of Kentucky." Anon. 
Quarto, 156 pages. Louisville Board of Trade, 1887. 

32. "History of Henderson County, Kentucky." By Edmund L. 
Starling. Octavo, 840 pages. Henderson, Kentucky, 1887. 

S2- "Chronicles of Cynthiana and Other Chronicles." By Lucinda 
Boyd. Octavo, 262 pages. Robert Clarke & Company, Cincinnati, 
1894. 

34. "The History of the City of Winchester and the County of Clark, 
in Kentucky," with biographical sketches of their prominent citizens 
and families. By Lucinda Boyd. Folio MS., 610 pages. Durrett 
MSS. 

35. "Memorial History of Louisville, from Its First Settlement to the 
Year 1896." By J. Stoddard Johnston. 2 vols., quarto, 659 and 
678 pages. American Biographical Publishing Company, Chicago 
and New York, 1896. 

E. Military Affairs. 

1. "A Treatise on the Mode and Manner of Indian War, Their Tactics, 
Discipline, and Encampments. The various methods they practice 
in order to obtain the advantage, by ambush, surprise, surroundings, 
etc. Ways and means proposed to prevent the Indians from obtain- 
ing the advantage. A chart, or plan of marching and encamping, laid 
down whereby we may undoubtedly surround them if we have men 
sufficient. Also, a brief account of twenty-three campaigns carried on 
against the Indians with the events, since the year 1755; Governor 
Harrison's included. Likewise some extracts selected from his journal 
while in captivity with the Indians, relative to the wars: which was 
published many years ago, but few of them now to be found." By 
Colonel James Smith. Printed by Joel R. Lyle, Paris, Ky., 1812. 

Smith's journal, or narrative also appears, in a more extended form, 
in Metcalf's "Indian Wars in the West," p. 163. 

2. "A History of the Late War (1812), in the Western Country." By 
Robert B. McAfee. Octavo, 534 pages. Worseley & Smith, Lex- 
ington, Kentucky, 1816. 

Very rare and of considerable historical value. 

3. "A Complete History of the Late American War with Great Britain 
and Her AUies." By Reverend M. Smith. i2mo., 288 pages. F. 
Bradford, Lexington, Kentucky, 1816. 

4. "Indian Wars in the West." By Samuel L. Metcalf. Octavo, 270 
pages. Wm. G. Hunt, Lexington, Kentucky, 182 1. 

A collection of some of the most interesting narratives of Indian 



574 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

warfare in the West. It contains accounts of Daniel Boone, and of 
the expeditions of Harmar, Scott, Wilkinson, St. Clair, and Wayne. 

5. "Narrative of the Sufifering and Defeat of the Northwestern Army 
under General Winchester: Massacre of the Prisoners: Sixteen Months' 
Imprisonment of the Writer and Others with the Indians and Brit- 
ish." By William Atherton. Octavo, 152 pages. Frankfort, Ken- 
tucky, 1842. 

6. "A Journal Containing an Accurate and Interesting Account of the 
Hardships, Sufferings, Battles, Defeat and Captivity of those Heroic 
Kentucky Volunteers and Regulars, Commanded by General Win- 
chester in the Year 1812-13. Also two narratives, by men that were 
wounded in the battles on the River Raisin, and taken captive by the 
Indians." By Elias Darnell. i2mo. 99 pages. Philadelphia, Lip- 
pincott, Grambo 81 Company 1854. 

7. "Legends of the War of Independence and of the Earlier Settlements 
of the West." By E. Marshall Smith. Octavo, 397 pages. J. F. 
Brennan, Louisville, Kentucky, 1855. 

8. "The Encarnajion Prisoners." By a prisoner. Louisville, 1848. 

A detailed account of the advance of the First Kentucky cavalry from 
Louisville to the Rio Grande, and a narrative of the captivity of the 
American prisoners, taken at Encarnagion by the Mexicans, during 
our war with Mexico. 

9. "Report of the Adjutant-General of the State of Kentucky, Mexican 
War Veterans." Quarto, 177 pages. John D. Woods, Frankfort, 
Kentucky, 1889. 

10. "Report of the Adjutant-General of the State of Kentucky. Soldiers 
of the War of 1812." Quarto, 371 pages. E. Polk Johnson, Frank- 
fort, Kentucky, i8gi. 

11. "The Conquest of the Country Northwest of the River Ohio, 1778- 
83, and Life of General George Rogers Clark." By William Hay- 
den English. 2 vols. The Bowen-Merrill Company, IndianapoHs 
and Kansas City, 1896. 

These volumes contain reprints and fac-similes of the more impor- 
tant of the George Rogers Clark papers, now preserved in the Draper 
Collection, the Durrett Collection, etc. It affords a rich source for 
the student of the George Rogers Clark Campaign, besides presenting 
a well written history of the Conquest of the Northwest. 

12. " George Rogers Clark's Conquest of the Northwest." By Consul 
Wilshire Butterfield. Published under the Auspices of The Ohio 
State Archaeological and Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio. Press 
of F. J. Heer, 1904. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF KENTUCKY HISTORY 575 

rv. Miscellaneous. 

1. "A Letter to a Friend in Virginia." By George Nicholas. Octavo, 
42 pages. John Bradford, Lexington, 1798. Durrett Collection. 

2. "The Report of the Select Committee to Whom Was Referred the 
Information Communicated to the House of Representatives Con- 
cerning Benjamin Sebastian." Octavo, 27 pages. J. M. Street, Frank- 
fort, Kentucky, 1806. 

3. "Antiquities of Kentucky." By Reverend John P. Campbell. Chil- 
licothe, 1815. 

4. "Voyage au Kentoukey, etc." By Pierre S. Marechal. Octavo, 
244 pages. M. Salier, Paris, 1821. 

5. "A Tour in Ohio and Kentucky." By F. Cuming. Pittsburg, 1823. 

6. "Report on the Conduct of the Judges of the Court of Appeals and 
Response of Judges." By John Rowan. Frankfort, 1824. 

7. "Trial of Isaac B. Desha for the Murder of Francis Baker." Lex- 
ington, 1825. 

8. "The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 and 1799." By 
Jonathan Elliott. Washington, 1832. 

9. "Sketches of Western Adventure." By John A. McClung. Con- 
taining an Account of the Most Interesting Incidents Connected with 
the Settlement of the West from 1755 to 1794. Octavo, 360 pages. 
Maysville, Kentucky, L. Collins, 1832. 

Another edition was printed at Dayton, Ohio, by L. F. Claflin & 
Company in 1854. Octavo, 315 pages. 

Still another edition was printed at Covington, Kentucky, by Rich- 
ard H. Collins & Company, in 1872. Octavo, 398 pages. It con- 
tains about 64 new pages entitled, "Additional Sketches of Western 
Adventure." 

10. A series of historical articles in the "Western Messenger," Louisville, 
1835. By Mann Butler. 

11. "Sketches of History, Life, and Manners in the West." By James 
Hall, Philadelphia, 1835. 

A record of a visit to the western country made in the year 1829. 

12. "An Appeal — from the Misrepresentations of James Hall, Respect- 
ing the History of Kentucky and the West." By Mann Butler. To 
which is annexed: a chronology of the principal events, as far as they 
could be then ascertained, in the history of the western country of the 
United States, from the earliest Spanish and French explorations to 
1806. 32 pages. Printed by Albert G. Hodges, Frankfort, 1837. 

In the same volume is bound Mann Butler's "The Valley of the 
Ohio, Its Conquest and Settlement by Americans." 



5/6 KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY 

13. "An Excursion to the Mammoth Cave and the Barrens of Kentucky, 
-with Some Notices of the Early Settlement of the State." By Rev- 
erend R. Davidson. i2mo., 148 pages. Lexington, Kentucky, A. T. 
Skillman Sz Son, 1840. 

14. "The Kentucky State Register, for the Year 1847." Containing 
the names and residences of all the Judges and Clerks of Courts, 
Commonwealth Attorneys, Justices of the Peace, Sheriffs, Coroners, 
Notaries Public, Commissioners of Tax, Attorneys at Law, Physicians 
and Principal Merchants; also a National Register and a great va- 
riety of general information. Edited by Taliaferro P. Shaflfner. 
236 pages. Published by Morton & Griswold, Louisville, 1847. 

15. "A New Kentucky State Register," accurately compiled for the 
year 1852. Edited by Thomas B. Monroe, Jr. Published by Hull 
& Brothers. Louisville, 1852. 

16. "Annals of the West." By James Albach, Pittsburg, 1857. 

-^ 17. "The History of Freemasonry in Kentucky." By Robert Morris. 
Octavo, 591 pages. Louisville, 1859. 
18. "A Report of the History and Mode of Management of the Ken- 
tucky Penitentiary." By William C. Sneed, M.D. Octavo, 614 pages. 
John B. Major, Frankfort, Kentucky, i860. 
__ 19. "The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 and 1799." By Reuben T. 

Durrett. Printed in the "Southern Bivouac," March, April, and May, 
1886. 

An exceedingly able discussion of the origin and authorship of those 
famous resolutions. Fac-simile of the original text of the Resolutions 
of 1798, and also of Jefferson's letter to J. Cabell Breckinridge, avow- 
ing their authorship. 
y 20. "The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798." An historical study. By 
Ethelbert Dudley Warfield. Octavo, 203 pages. G. P. Putnam's 
Sons, New York, 1887. 

A very able critical study of the origin and history of the Resolu- 
tions. 
^ 21. "The Constitutional Aspect of Kentucky's Struggle for Autonomy: 

1784-1792." By Ethelbert Dudley Warfield. American Historical 
Association papers, IV, pp. 349-365, New York, 1890. 

22. "History and Text of the Three Constitutions of Kentucky." By 
Bennett H. Young. Large octavo, 129 pages. Louisville "Courier- 
Journal" Job Printing Company, 1890. 

23. "The Spanish Conspiracy. A review of Early Spanish Movements 
in the South and West." By Thomas Marshall Green. Octavo, 406 
pages. Cincinnati, Robert Clarke & Company, 1891. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF KENTUCKY HISTORY 577 

This volume is in the nature of a reply to "The Political Beginnings 
of Kentucky," by John Mason Brown. 

24. "Early Banking in Kentucky." An address delivered before the 
Kentucky Bankers Association in October, 1892. By R. T. Durrett. 
Printed in the Proceedings of the Association for 1892, 35-45 pages. 
John P. Morton & Company, Louisville, 1892. 

25. "History of the Bank of Kentucky." By General Basil W. Duke. 
Octavo, 140 pages. John P. Morton & Company, Louisville, 1895. 

26. "The Anglo-Saxons of the Kentucky Mountains." By Ellen 
Churchill Semple. From the "Geographical Journal" for June, 1901. 
36 pages. Printed by William Clowes & Sons, London. 

27. "Boone's Wilderness Road." By Archer Butler Hulbert. Historic 
Highways of America Series, VI, 207 pages. The Arthur H. Clark 
Company, Cleveland, Ohio, 1903. 

28. "The Mountain People of Kentucky. An account of present con- 
ditions with the attitude of the people toward improvement." By 
William H. Haney. 196 pages. Cincinnati, Ohio, Roessler Brothers, 
printers and publishers, 1906. 

29. "The Union Cause in Kentucky." By Captain Thomas Speed. 
G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London, 1907. 

An interesting discussion of Kentucky's position with reference to 
fundamental questions raised by the Civil War. 

The volume contains a "Foreword" by Mr. Justice Harlan, of the 
United States Supreme Court. 



Kentucky — 37 



INDEX 



Abbott, Governor of Vincennes, 90 
Abolition before 1829, 409 

Abolitionist, first, in Kentucky, 410 
Abolitionists and Fugitive Slave 

Law, 475 

Adair, General John, 304, 305, 307 
borrows city arms of New 

Orleans, 359 

correspondence with Jack- 
son, 372 
second in command of Ken- 
tucky troops at New Or- 
leans, 357 
Adams, John, 214, 263, 264 
Adams, John Quincy, 373 
candidate for president, 389 
elected by Clay, 392 
Florida treaty, 413 
views on navigation of Mis- 
sissippi, in negotiations of 
Ghent, 374, 375 
Address of Second Assembly 

(text), 122-125 

Third Assembly (text), 126-128 
asking admission for Ken- 
tucky, 146 
Agreement, Buckner-McClellan, 
concerning Kentucky neu- 
trality, 53^534 
"Alabama letters," Clay's, 419 
Alien law, 217, 218 
Allen, Colonel of Kentucky volun- 
teers (1812), 337, 338 
death, 340 
praised by Harrison, 355 
Amendment, Dixon's, to Doug- 
las' Nebraska bill 490 



Amendment, Douglas adopts 

Dixon's, 493 

Ames, Fisher, 194 

Amherstburg, Fort, 336 

Anderson, Major Robert, 

assumes command at Fort 

Moultrie, 504 

transfers garrison to Fort 

Sumter, 505 

to Floyd. 505 

declines to evacuate Fort 

Sumter, 516 

Anti-Relief party, 387 

supports Clay in 1824 391 

Arnaud, Major, 367, 368 

Articles of Capitulation, Vin- 
cennes (text), 95 

Assembly, Kentucky, 

First (deliberative), 118 

Second, 119, 121 

Third, 125 

Fourth, 130, 131 

Fifth, 136 

Sixth (constitutional), 137 

Seventh, 139 

Eighth, 143 

Ninth, 144 

Tenth (constitutional), 145 

Assembly, Virginia, 

receives petition asking sepa- 
ration, 128 

Atchison, David R., 485, 487 

Bank, 

Kentucky Insurance Com- 
pany as, 379 
of Kentucky, chartered, 380 



579 



58o 



INDEX 



Bank, of Kentucky, 

loans funds to State, 519 

suspends. May 4, 1820, 3S4 
Forty Independent ("Forty 

Thieves"), chartered, 382 
failed, 383, 397 

of Commonwealth, char- 
tered, 3S5 
National, bill for recharter, 400 
vetoed, 401 
branches established in 

Kentucky, 383 

controls Kentucky finances, 397 

Barrett, George, 533 

Batts, Captain Thomas, 3 

Bayard, James A., 373, 375 

Beatty, Major Erkuries, 147 

Beauregard, General, 515 

demands surrender of Fort 

Sumter 516 

Bell and Douglas consolidated 

parties, resolutions of, 508 

Bell, John, 498 

Benton, Thomas H., 485 

Bigger, Judge, S33 

Birney, James G., 417, 422 

Blair, Judge, 

opinion concerning replevin 
law, 387 

Blennerhassett, Herman, 

correspondence and confer- 
ences with Aaron Burr, 

289-292 

provides boats for Burr 292 

and Jefferson's agent, 308 

Blue Licks, battle of, 109-111 

Boiling Spring, 40, 41 

Boone, Daniel, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25, 

26, 33, 36, 37 

sketch of early life and 

characteristics, 13-16 

first glimpse of Kentucky, 18 

captured by Indians, 20 

winters in Kentucky, 21 



Boone, Daniel, unsuccessful at- 
tempt to settle Kentucky, 

27, 28 
warns settlers to retire to Vir- 
ginia, 29 
builds Wilderness Road, 35 
to Henderson, 38, 39 
carries Dunmore's warning, 41 
as committeeman, 47 
captured at Blue Licks, 77, 78 
captivity of, 79 
defends conduct at Blue 

Licks, 81 

at battle of Blue Licks, 109, no 
to Governor Harrison, in 

Boone, Squire, 21, 22, 24, 25 

Boonesborough, 35, 36, 39, 45, 49, 
80, 81, 85, 86 
Hamilton plans capture of, 67 
attacked, 69 

siege of, 82-84 

Border Slave States Convention, 529 
Borland, Major, 432, 433 

Bowman, Joseph, 93, 96 

relieves Logan's Fort, 71 

captures Cahokia, 89 

Boyd, Linn, 499 

Breckinridge, John, 227, 228 

presents Kentucky resolu- 
tions of 1798, 244 
defends Kentucky resolu- 
tions of 1798, 245-247 
to Jefferson, 255, 256 
presents Kentucky resolu- 
tions of 1799, 256-261 
Breckinridge, John C, candi- 
date for president, 498 
defends States rights before 
Kentucky Legislature 
(1S61), 514 
one of "Six Arbiters," 524 
Brown, John, 133, 138, 140, 279, 
280, 307 
leader of Court party, 135 



INDEX 



S8i 



Brown, John, first Congressional 

delegate of Kentucky, 136 

to McDowell, 137 

Seventh Assembly, 139 

conference with Knox and 
Washington, 156 

Brown, Samuel, 334 

Bryant's Station, siege of, 107-109 
Buchanan, James, 428, 445, 497 

president, 497 

message of Dec. 3, i860, 500 

truce with southern leaders, 506 
Buckner, General Simon Boli- 
var, 520 
conference with McClellan 

at Cincinnati, 530 

report to MagoflBn, 531, 532 

conference with McClellan 

at Cairo, 533 

conference with Lincoln, 535 

Buena Vista, battle of, 438-443 

Kentucky troops in, 439-443 

Bullock, Colonel, 

Cairo interview, 533, 534 

Bull Run, battle of, 537 

Burr, Aaron, 296, 297 

vice-president, 264 

visits Kentucky, 277 

duel with Hamilton, 277 

last appearance in Senate, 278 
preliminary intrigues of, 279 

meets Wilkinson at Pitts- 
burg, 280 
at Fort Massac, 281 
rumors concerning, 282, 283 
personal appearance, 284-286 
at St. Louis, 287 
and Eaton, 288, 289 
and Blennerhassett, 289-292 
" Western World " charges 
against, 293-295 
^ -trial in Kentucky, 299-307 



declaration of 



mnocence, 

302, 303 



Burr, Aaron, Daveiss indictment 

of (text), 306, 307 

acquittal, 308 

Wilkinson's betrayal of, 309 

cipher letter to Wilkinson 

(text), 309-311 

trial at Richmond, 312, 313 

Butler, Wm. O., 429, 432 

Byrd, Colonel, 103 

Cahokia, 

Bowman's capture of, 8g 

Cairo, McClellan-Buckner inter- 
view at, 533 
Bullock's account of inter- 
view at, 534 
Caldwell, Captain Wm., 106 
Calhoun, John C, 

compromise of 1833, 403 

compromise of 1850, 466 

California, gold discovered in, 455 
growth of population, 457 

Wilmot Proviso, 458 

Taylor urges admission of, 461 
Clay's speech on admission, 464 
Cameron, Simon, 517 

Carolina, South, nullification, 401 
Kentucky legislature con- 
demns, 404 
Carondelet, 200, 201, 202, 204 
propositions of, 204-206 
Cass, Lewis, 451 
Cerro Gordo, 443 
Chase, Salmon P., 496 
Chesapeake, affair of, 315, 316 
Chillicothe, Clark captures, 104 
Cincinnati, Buckner-McClellan 

conference at, 530 

Clark county resolutions 220-222 

Clark, George Rogers, 56, 57, 58, 59, 

60, 62, 63, 64, 66, 67, 72, 86, 

87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 103, III, 

112, 134, 171, 172, 196 

visits Patrick Henry, 73 



5^2 



INDEX 



Clark, George Rogers, 

marching orders (1778), 74 

his powers of enlistment for 

northwestern campaign, 76 
starts march against north- 
western posts, 85 
to Governor Patrick Henry 

(text), 91-93 

reaches Vincennes, 93 

proclamation at Vincennes 

(text), 94 

colonel, 96 

captures Chillicothe, 104 

major-general in armies of 
France, 170 

Clark, Judge James, opinion con- 
cerning replevin law, 387 
Clay, Cassius M., 417, 418, 432, 433 
at Yale, 409 
first abolitionist in Ken- 
tucky, 410 
begins crusade against sla- 
very, 411 
to Henry Clay, 420 
"True American," 425-427 
Clay, General Green, 344, 345, 409 
Clay, Henry, 324, 330, s^i, 376, 
405, 417, 418, 422, 423, 424, 

447> 451. 452, 458, 460, 463, 
464, 471, 477 
early life, 223, 224 

speech against alien law, 224, 225 
counsel for Burr, 300 

receives Burr's statement of 

innocence, 302 

resolutions concerning em- 
bargo, 318 
duel with Humphrey Mar- 
shall, 319-322 
early national career, 325 
at Ghent, 373, 374 
first nomination for presi- 
dent, 389 
quarrel with Jackson 390 



Clay, Henry, elects John Quincy 

Adams, 392 

secretary of state, 392 

United States senator 

(1831), 399 

nomination for president 

(1831), 400 

defeat of 1832, 401 

compromise of 1833, 403 

protest against surrender of 

Texas, 412 

to John J. Crittenden, 

Dec. 1843, 414 

in campaign of 1844, 415 

"Raleigh letter," 415 

nominated for president 

(1844), 416 

"Alabama letters," 418, 419 
to Cassius M. Clay, 420, 421 
Lexington speech on Mexi- 
can war, 445, 446 
resolutions concerning Mexi- 
can war, 446 
elected to United States 

senate (1849), 459 

plan of compromise (1850), 462 
report for committee of 

thirteen, 469 

defends new Fugitive Slave 

Law, 476 

last conversation in Ken- 
tucky, 478 
religious views, 480 
resigns from United States 

senate, 481 

medal presented to, 481 

Cohos (Cahokia), 88 

Columbus, confederate invasion 

of, S40 

Committee of thirteen; Clay's re- 
port for, 469 
report of, embodies doctrine 
of non-intervention, 484, 485 
Compromise of 1833, 403, 404 



INDEX 



583 



Compromise of 1850, Clay's plan 

of, 462, 463 

Clay's speech on, 463-465 

Calhoun's speech on, 466 

Webster's speech on, 467 

Seward's speech on, 468 

passed, 472, 474 

Douglas' interpretation 
of, 488, 489 

Confederate troops ordered to 

leave Kentucky, 542 

Confederation of Indians against 

Kentucky, 105, 106 

move against Bryant's sta- 
tion, 107 
Corn Island, 86, 87 
Cornstalk, 29, 30, 31, 32 
Cornwallis, surrender of, 106 
Country party, 136, 138, 139 
Court of Appeals, attempts to re- 
move judges of, 393 
old and new, 393, 394 
Court of Inquiry, 371 
Cowan, Captain John, 147 
Crawford, Wm. H., 389 
Crittenden, John J., 414, 417, 449, 

Soo> 503, 504, 512, 514, 535 
proposed compromise meas- 
ures of, 501, 502 
advocates mediating neu- 
trality, 521, 522 
one of "Six Arbiters," 524 
president of Border Slave 
State Convention, 530 

Damville, military conference 

at (1784), 117 

Dartmouth college case, 386 

Daveiss, Joseph Hamilton, 296, 297 
affidavit concerning Burr 

(text), 298, 299 

and Burr trial at Frankfort, 

301-307 
Davie, Wm., 264 



PAGE 

Davis, Garret, 522 

Davis, Jefferson, 493 

at Buena Vista, 436, 440, 441 

provisional president of con- 
federacy, 514 

president, 540 

Dayton, Wm. L., 497 

Defiance, Fort, 337, 345 

Delpeau, 169 

Democratic clubs, 168 

resolutions of, 197, 198 

Desha, Major-General, Joseph, 

351, 355 

Detroit surrendered, 333 

Dinwiddie, Robert, 8 

Dixon, Archibald, 473 

announces amendment to 

Douglas' Nebraska bill, 490 
interview with Douglas, 491, 492 
to H. S. Foote, 492 

one of "Six Arbiters," 524 

Dodge Nebraska bill, 486 

Douglas, Stephen A., 473 

and Dodge Nebraska bill, 486 
reports Nebraska bill, 488, 489 
interviews Dixon, 491, 492 

adopts Dixon's amendment, 493 
substitute bill, 493 

defends Kansas-Nebraska 

bill, 494 

candidate for president, in 
i860, 498 

Dunmore, Lord, 29, 30, 32, 42 



Ellicott, Andrew, 


208, 209 


Embargo, Jefferson's, 


318 


lifted. 


323 


Enabling Acts, 




First, 


129 


Second, 


131 


Third, 


141 


Fourth, 


143 


Erskine's treaty, 


3^3 


repudiated, 


324 



584 



INDEX 



Erving, Geo. W., 413 

Eustis, Wm., secretary of war, 336 

Everett, Edward, 498 

Ewing, George W., 511 

Fallen Timbers, battle of, 179, 180 
Federal troops, Kentucky re- 
fuses to expel, 543 
Fillmore, Millard, president, 472, 497 
Filson, John, 11 
Fincastle County divided, 60 
Floyd, David, 312 
Floyd, Davis, 301, 303 
Floyd, Captain John, 44 
"Forlorn Hope," 353 
Fort, 

Defiance, 178 

Maiden, 33^, 348 

Stanwix, 29 

Sumter, 515, 516 

"Forty Niners," 455, 456, 457 

Fremont, John C, 497 

French agents sent by Genet to 

Kentucky, 169 
Frenchtown, captured by Ken- 
tucky volunteers, 338 
massacre, 342 
Fugitive Slave Law, of 1793, 465 
nullified, 465 
and abolitionists, 475 
of 1850, 475 
Clay defends, 476 

Gaines, John P., 432, 433 

Gallatin, Albert, 373, 375 

Gardoqui, and John Jay, 132, 140 
Garrard, Governor James, 241-243, 

265 
Garrison, Wm. Lloyd, 409 

Gayoso, Colonel, 201, 202, 204, 209 
Genet, Edmund Charles, 169, 172, 175 
Ghent, treaty of, 

American commission, 373 



Ghent, question of navigation of 

Mississippi River, 374, 375 

Gibault, Father, 90 

Gignoux, 169 

Gill, Samuel, 530 

Girty, Simon, 106 

Gist, Christopher, 6, 7, 8, 9 

Greenville, Fort, treaty of, 184 

Guadaloupe Hidalgo, treaty 

of, 452 

Hamilton, Alexander, 

duel with Burr, 277 

Hamilton, Colonel Henry, 66, 67, 

71, 78, 82, 91 

surrenders Vincennes, 94 

Hancock, Stephen, 80-86 

Hardin, Colonel John, 153, 154 

courts-martial, 155 

Scott expedition, 157, 165 

Harlan, James, 451 

Harmar, General J., 152, 153, 154 

court-martial of, 155 

character of, 156 

Harrison, William Henry, 

at Tippecanoe, 329 

and committee of Kentuck- 

ians, 334 

accepts commission from 

Kentucky, 335 

reaches rapids of Maumee, 343 
at Fort Meigs, 345, 346 

at Fort Maiden, 348 

on Thames, 350, 351 

report of battle of Thames, 

354, 355 
Harrod, Captain James, 40, 41, 43, 44 
Harrodsburg, 40, 41, 43, 57, 58, 

67,68 
Hawes, Richard, one of "Six Ar- 
biters," 524 
Henderson, Colonel Richard, 34, 
35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42, 
44, 45, 48, 51, 54 



INDEX 



585 



Henry, Major-General William, 

at battle of Thames, 351 

Henry, Patrick, 54, 58, 73, 91 

to George Rogers Clark 

(text), 74-76, 

plans fort at mouth of Ohio, loi 
Herrod, Andrew Jackson, 440 

Hickman, confederate invasion 

of, 540 

Hill, Isaac, 398 

Hogg, James, 51, 52, 54 

Houston, Sam, 413 

Hull, General William, surren- 
ders Detroit, 2^;^, 334 

Innes, James, 198, 199 

Innis, Harry, 128, 133, 135, 

204, 206, 207 

Insurance company, Kentucky, 
first banking concern in 
Kentucky, 379 

Irwin (Geo. W. Erving), 412 

Jackson, Andrew, 

his censure of Kentucky 

troops at New Orleans, 356 
letter telling of poor arms of 

Kentuckians, 358 

official report of battle of 

New Orleans issued, 370 

approves verdict in favor of 

Kentucky troops, 372 

candidate for president 

(1824), 389 

hatred of Henry Clay, 390 

satirized, 393 

carries Kentucky (1828), 396 

president, 397 

adopts Kentucky relief 

idea, 397 

and Kendall, Hill and Blair, 398 
vetoes Maysville Turnpike 

bill, 399 

vetoes National Bank bill, 401 



Jackson, Andrew, 

signs tariff of 1832, 401 

message of Dec. 1832, 402 

removal of deposits, 404, 405 
appoints successor, 406 

idea concerning claim to 
Texas, 412 

Jacob, R. T., resolutions propos- 
ing mediating neutrality 
for Kentucky, 513 

Jay, John, 

his 25-year plan, 132, 133 

envoy to England, 187 

his treaty ratified, 191 

Kentucky outcry against, 193 
his treaty signed by Wash- 
ington, 194 
Jefferson County, 126 
Jefferson, Fort, on Ohio River, 102 
Jefferson, Thomas, 52, 73, 228, 
275, 296, 297 
to George Rogers Clark 

(text), 76, 77 

to J. C. Breckinridge (fac- 
simile), 230 
resolutions of (text), 231-241 
to Madison, 253, 254 
to W. C. Nicholas, 254, 255 
president, 264, 270 
to Governor Garrard, 271 
his proclamation concerning 

Burr issued, 311 

embargo policy, 318 

end of term, 322 

Johnson, James, at battle of 

Thames, 351, 352 

Johnson, Richard M., 346, 348, 349 

at Battle of Thames, 352 

and death of Tecumseh, 353 

Johnson, Sir William, 13, 29 

Jones, Gabriel John, 58, 60, 62, 64 

Kansas-Nebraska bill, 474, 495, 496 
Kaskaskia, 87, 88, 89, 90 



586 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Kaskasky (Kaskaskia), 74 

Kendall, Amos, 398 

Kenton, Simon, 63, 64, 89, 90 

Kentucky, 

petitions Virginia for protec- 
tion, 55 
resolutions of 1798 (fac- 
simile), 244 
resolutions of 1799 (text), 

258-261. 
Knox, Colonel James, 26, 27 

La Angostura, 43 S 

La Chaise, 169 

Lafont, Jean B., 90 

Lambert, General, at New Or- 
leans, 362 
Land Companies, 

Loyal company, 4, 12 

Ohio company, 4, 6, 8, 12 

Lane, Joseph, 498 

La Salle, 2 

Latour, Major, 365 

Laussat, Governor, transfers 

Louisiana to America, 275,276 
Leclerc, 266 

Letcher, R. P., 404 

Lewis, Andrew, 3°, 3^ 

Lewis, Charles, 31 

Lewis, John, 337, 338, 339, 340 

Lincoln, Abraham, 498, 514, 515 

proclamation calling for 

troops (1861), 516 

and neutrality, 522, 523, 535 

statement of, given to Buck- 

ner, 53^ 

Logan, Benjamin, 70, 71, 104, 116, 

ii7> 134 

Logan's Fort, 41, 67, 69, 71 

"Long Hunters," 26,27 

Louisiana purchase, 274, 275, 276 

Lyon, Matthew, 280 

McAfee, Robert, 
McAfee, Robert B., 



530 



533 

S32» 533 

63, 64 

137 

no. III 

430. 434 



PAGE 

McAfee, Samuel, 43 

McBride, James, 11 

McClellan, General George B., 
Cincinnati conference with 

Buckner, 
Cairo conference with Buck- 
ner, 
to Magoffin (text), 
McClelland's Fort, 
McDowell, Samuel, 
McGary, Major, 
McKee, Colonel Wm. R. 
Madison, James, 229, 331, 332, 335 
takes the oath, 322 

against embargo, 323 

and Virginia resolutions of 

1798, 252 

message of June i, 1812, 330 

Magoffin, Governor Beriah, 499, 

520, 543 

message of Jan. 17, 1861, 

509, 510 
to Secretary Cameron, 517, 518 
appeal to banks, 519 

one of "Six Arbiters," 524 

proclamation of mediating 

neutrality, 526 

to Geo. B. McClellan, 533 

and Lincoln, 538, 539 

vetoes resolutions abandon- 
ing neutrality, 545 
Maiden, Fort, 340 
j -Marshall, Humphrey, 318, 319, 329 
duel with Henry Clay, 319, 322 
at Buena Vista, 434, 436, 437. 
439» 442 
Marshall, James M., 144 
Marshall, John, Kentucky agent 

in Virginia, 131, 213 

presided at Burr's trial at 

Richmond, 309 

Marshall, Thos. F., 427, 429, 432 

43 Martin, John, 70 

395 Mason, George, 73 



INDEX 



587 



PAGE 

Matthews, George, 31 

Mathurin, 169 

Maumee, Rapids of, 337, 343 

Meigs, Fort, 344, 345 

Michaux, 169 

Minon, General, 433 

Missouri compromise, 

and compromise of 1850 

compared, 473 

Atchison's views on, 485 

declared superseded, 493 

Montgomery, Captain Joseph, 86 

Morales' proclamation closing 

Mississippi River, 267, 268 
Morehead, Chas. S., to Critten- 
den, J. J., 468 
Morgan, General, in battle of 

New Orleans, 365, 367, 369 
Mounds in Kentucky, 9 

Murray, William, speech against 

resolutions of 1798, 245 

Murray, William Vans, 263, 264 

Muter, Judge George, 125, 128, 

^33, 137 

Napoleon, 266, 326, 327 

Naturalization law, 216, 217 

Navigation of Mississippi River, 139 
Wilkinson's essay on, 141 

in negotiations of Ghent, 374 
Nebraska, 485 

Dodge bill, 486 

Douglas bill, 488 

Nelson, General William, 438 

Neutrality of Kentucky, 519, 520, 521 
Jacob's resolutions concern- 
ing, 513 
resolutions proposing, 525 
house declares for, 525 
senate declares for, 526 
governor declares for, 526 
McClellan-Buckner Cincin- 
nati interview concerning, 

530-532 



Neutrality of Kentucky, Buckner- 
Lincoln interview concern- 
ing, 535 
Lincoln's statement concern- 
ing, 536 
Jefferson Davis' views, 540 
General Leonidas Polk con- 
cerning, 542 
resolutions abandoning, 544, 545 
New Court party, 394, 395 
merged into Democratic, 396 
New Orleans, Kentucky troops at, 
poor arms of, 358 
Adair secures arms for, 359 
on east bank, 361 
a letter concerning (text), 362-365 
on west bank, 367,368 
controversy over, 371 
Jackson's censure of, 371 
Jackson-Adair controversy 
over, 372 
Nicholas, Colonel George, 202, 204, 
206, 207, 225, 227 
Nicholas, S. S., one of "Six Ar- 
biters," 524 
Nicholas, W. C, 228 
Northwestern posts evacuated, 195 

Ohio route to Kentucky, 148 

Old Court party, 393, 394, 395 

merged into National Re- 
publican party, 396 
Oldham, Colonel, 159 
"Omnibus bill," 469, 470 
Ordinance of Secession, South 

Carolina, 504 

Oregon organized, 455 

Ormsby, Colonel, 430 

Owsley, Governor Wm., 430 

Pakenham, Lord Edward, 357, 362 
Patterson, Commodore, censure 
of Kentucky troops for 
conduct at New Orleans, 356 



588 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Peace conference, S^^ 

Peace of Paris, 113 

Peace of 1783, effect of Clark's 

conquest on, 96 

Penniman, Benj. F., reminis- 
cences of Henry Clay 
(text), 478-480 

Perry's victory, 347, 349 

Pinckney, Chas. C, 212, 213 

Pinckney, Thomas, 198-200 

Polk, President James K., 416, 417, 

43o> 445 
Polk, General Leonidas, 542 

Popular sovereignty in compro- 
mise of 1850, 473 
Powell, Lazarus W., 503 
Power, Thomas, 201, 204, 206, 207 
Proclamation closing Mississippi 

River, 267, 268 

Proctor, Colonel, 341, 342, 345, 

348, 350 

Proprietors of Transylvania, 47, 51 

Raisin River, massacre, 342, 343 
"Raleigh letter," Clay's, 415 

Ray, James, escape of, 68 

Relief party, Kentucky, 387 

elections of 1820, 384 

elections of 1824, 388 

turns against Clay, 392 

Jackson adopts ideas of, 397 
Replevin law, 12 months, 384 

two years, 385 

Judge Clark's and Judge 
Blair's opinions concern- 
ing, 387 
Repeal of Missouri compromise, 

Atchison's views on, 485 

Republican party, origin of, 496, 498 
Resolutions, Kentucky, of 1798: 

(facsimile of text), 244 

Wm. Murray's speech against, 245 
John Breckinridge defends, 

24S> 247 



Resolutions, Kentucky, of 1798: 

adopted, 247 

compared with Jefferson 

draft, 248-250 

response of co-States, 250, 251 
Kentucky, of 1799: 
(text of), 258-261 

Regarding closing of Missis- 
sippi River 268-270 
Virginia, of 1798, 252, 253 
Robinson, Camp Dick, estab- 
lished, 538 
Magoffin-Lincoln corre- 
spondence concerning, 538, 539 
Rowan, John, 301, 302 
Ruddle's Station, 103 
Russell, Jonathan, 373, 375 

St. Asaph's Station, 40, 41 

St. Clair, General Arthur, 150, 152, 

157, 160, 161 

St. Vincents (Vincennes), 88 

San Ildefonso, treaty of, 266 

San Jacinto, 413 

San Lorenzo el Real, treaty of, 202, 203 

Santa Anna, 433, 435, 436, 437, 438 

Scott, Governor Charles, 157, 177, 

333, 334, 335 

Scott, Winfield, 432, 433, 444, 44S 

Sebastian, Judge Benjamin, 133, 141, 

201, 202, 203, 206, 292 

leader of Court party, 135 

Sedition Act, 218, 219 

Seminole War, 390 

"Seventh of March Speech," 

Webster's, 467 

Seward, Wm. H., 468 

Shelby, Isaac, 31, 173, 174, 194, i95, 

344, 346, 347, 348, 349. 355 

at battle of Tham^es, 351, 354 

"Six Arbiters," 523, 524, 525 

Slavery, in Kentucky, 408 

question raised by treaty of 

Guadaloupe, 454 



-7 



INDEX 



589 



Slavery, prohibited in California, 457 
Henry Clay's views concern- 
ing, 458 
and compromise of 1850, 

462, 463 
Sovereignty Convention pro- 
posed for Kentucky, 510 
Specie Circular, Jackson's, 406 
Speed, James, to Governor Gar- 
rard, 268 
Spencer, Ambrose, to Henry 

Clay, 422 

Stewart, John, 16, 19, 21, 22 

Stuart, John, I3> 3i 

Surplus, distribution of National, 406 

Talleyr.wd, 213, 263, 266 

Taney, Roger B., 404 

Taylor, Zachary, 418, 429, 432, 
433. 434, 435, 437, 438, 

440, 441, 442, 443, 449 
to Henry Clay (text), 443, 444 
nominated for president, 45° 
elected, 452 

first message, 461 

death of, 472 

Tecumseh, 344, 348, 350, 352, 353 
Texas, question in campaign of 

1844, 411 

our claim to, abandoned, 412 

and Houston, 413 

admitted to Union, 427 

Thames River, 349, 35° 

battle of, 351-355 

Thomas, General John, 357 

Thornton, Colonel, 368, 369 

Todd, John, 63, 97 

Trabue, Daniel, 82-84 

Transylvania Company, 34, 40, 41 

42, 44, 50, 52, 54, 56, 57, 60 

Treaty 

of Camp Charlotte, 32 

Fort Greenville, 184 

French, of 1799, 264 



Treaty 

of San Ildefonso, 266 
Wilkinson's private Spanish, 135 

of 1846, 428 

of Wataga, 48 

Trimble, Lieutenant David, 34S 

Triumvirate, Clay, Webster and 

Calhoun, 460 

Trotter, Colonel, I53 

"True American," 425-427 

Truman, Major, 165 

Turnpike, Maysville, bill, 398 

Tyler, President John, 427 

Union Sentiment in Kentucky in 

1861, 529, 534, 535, 537 

Van Buren, President Martin, 406 

agreement with Henry Clay, 4^5 

" Globe letter," 416 

Vera Cruz, 444 

Verplanck bill, 404 

Vincennes, 87, 89, 90, 93, 95 

articles of capitulation (text), 95 

Virginia, 

resolutions of 1798, 252, 253 

Walker, L. P., to Magoffin, 517 
Walker, Dr. Thomas, 4, 8, 9 

Wallace, Caleb, 227 

Washington, Fort, i53, ^54 

Washington, George, 8, 145 

Wataga, treaty of, 48 

Wayne, Anthony, 166, 173, 177, 

178, 181, 182 

Wayne, Fort, 335 

Webster, Daniel, 460, 465 

"Seventh of March Speech," 467 

" Western World," accusations 

of, against Burr, 293-295 

Wilderness Road, 35, 148 

Wilkinson, James, 115, "6, 121, 125, 

130, 131, 132, 134, 139, 161, 

166, 196, 207, 208, 280, 298,307 



^ 



A 



590 



INDEX 



Wilkinson, Jiames, 

his Spanish trading treaty, 135 
his essay on Navigation of 

Mississippi River, 140, 141 
in Scott expedition, 158, 159 

at battle of Fallen Timbers, 181 
head of United States army, 279 
confers with Burr, 281, 287 

betrays Burr, 309-311, 312 

Williams, Colonel John, 50 

Williams, Joha S., 430 



PAGE 

Wilmot Proviso, 460, 464 

Winchester, General, commander 

of Western army, 335 

reaches Fort Defiance, 337 

at Frenchtown, 339 

River Raisin, 341 

Wood, General Abraham, 3 

Wright, J. C, to Henry Clay, 419, 420 

Wythe, George, 52, 73 



X. Y. Z. dispatches. 



213, 214 



V 



